Introduction

As we write these lines, the pressure on Europe's sovereign and financial markets continues and the European Central Bank (ECB) continues to play a central role in euro area's crisis response. Indeed, its role has grown as the crisis evolved, from monetary policymaker to provider of emergency liquidity and temporary stabilizer of sovereign bond markets. Many books will be written about what transpired since the collapse of Lehman and how the ECB played its part in the euro area policy concert-but this book is not one of them. Rather than trying to predict the outcome of the ongoing crisis, we ask how the ECB grew into its current role, taking stock of the ECB's achievements during its first 10 years.