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When Harold James writes, people in economics stop and consider, he is one of the great historians of the American experiment and of the global experiment, truly iconic at Princeton, and he's been given a most interesting

job which is to be an historian of the IMF.

Professor James, wonderful to speak to you again. What are you doing

for Madam Lagarde? Well it's great to speak with you. So I'm going to write

to the history or help to write the history of the

International Monetary Fund in the 21st century so in the years of the enormous expansion and the the credit bubble

when people thought that the fund was irrelevant and then in the aftermath of the

financial crisis when suddenly people want the fund again and need the fund.

It's an interesting organization because as you mentioned it has gone in and out of favor it is also morphed over the years

from Breton Woods to what it is today can you go into it saying it is a success

or a failure or can you even judge it in those terms?

Well, it's really interesting at the beginning.

It was supposed to be part of an overall security structure so that the structure of the IMF exactly replicated

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