| Description |
256 pages ; 24 cm |
| Series |
Globalities |
|
Globalities.
|
| Contents |
1. The Coming of the Corporation -- 2. The Making of Financial Markets -- 3. Gold and Silver: Aristocrats of Monetary Standards -- 4. The Triumph of Paper Money -- 5. The Passage from Free Banking to Central Banking -- 6. The Birth of World Currencies -- 7. The Road to Flexible Exchange Rates -- 8. The Evolution of International Banking -- 9. The Paths of Foreign Investment -- 10. The Struggle for Free Trade -- 11. The Vicissitudes of Capitalism -- 12. The Age of Financial Integration Begins -- 13. In the Shadow of the Global Financial System |
| Summary |
"This book traces the evolution of today's highly integrated global financial system from its origins around 1750. The 1700s saw the cautious growth of the corporate form of business organization that exploded in the nineteenth century, thus facilitating the international movement of capital. In charting these changes, Larry Allen describes the parallel growth of the financial markets and explains how the need to finance public debts paved the way for stock markets; he also outlines the role of private merchant bankers such as the Rothchilds, from their origins as international bankers with family-run offices across Europe. Allen charts the transformation of banks into public corporations and follows the evolution of modern paper money, putting the emergence of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank - target of anit-capitalist protest today - into their historical contexts |
|
As well as tracing the development of foreign-exchange markets and the history of trading blocs, the book also examines how economic powers such as Britain and France used access to capital to wield power in less-developed parts of the world, Finally, Allen surveys the history of financial crises to show how economic shocks reverberate from one country to another today through a network constructed over more than two centuries."--BOOK JACKET |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 242-248) and index |
| Subject |
International finance -- History.
|
|
Financial institutions -- History.
|
|
International finance.
|
|
Financial institutions.
|
| LC no. |
2002437241 |
| ISBN |
1861891091 |
|
