A Financial History of Western Europe (Economic History) - Hardcover

Kindleberger, Charles P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415378672 ISBN 13: 9780415378673

Publisher: Routledge, 2005

Synopsis

This is the first history of finance - broadly defined to include money, banking, capital markets, public and private finance, international transfers etc. - that covers Western Europe (with an occasional glance at the western hemisphere) and half a millennium.

Charles Kindleberger highlights the development of financial institutions to meet emerging needs, and the similarities and contrasts in the handling of financial problems such as transferring resources from one country to another, stimulating investment, or financing war and cleaning up the resulting monetary mess. The first half of the book covers money, banking and finance from 1450 to 1913; the second deals in considerably finer detail with the twentieth century.

This major work casts current issues in historical perspective and throws light on the fascinating, and far from orderly, evolution of financial institutions and the management of financial problems. Comprehensive, critical and cosmopolitan, this book is both an outstanding work of reference and essential reading for all those involved in the study and practice of finance, be they economic historians, financial experts, scholarly bankers or students of money and banking.

This groundbreaking work was first published in 1984.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles P. Kindleberger has written many influential books in economics over the past 60 years, the most recent of which are: Economic Laws and Economic History (1990), Historical Economics: Art of Science? (1990), and Mariners and Markets (1992).

Review:

"The most important part of the revision [in this second edition] is in extending the treatment to cover much of the experience of the last 10 years of European monetary integration....Full of ideas and fascinating information. It is a lively cocktail that has proved immensely popular with
both undergraduate and graduate students and also with others who simply want to be acquainted quickly with some aspect of European monetary and financial history. It is written in the felicitous style for which Kindleberger has become noted. This edition will prove to be as successful as its
predecessor." --Economic Affairs

"The best text available on the financial history of Western Europe. I find it fascinating to read a couple of pages and learn something new."--Philip Coelho, Ball State University

"Excellent history, only one in the field."--Eugene White, Rutgers University

Praise for the first edition: "An astonishing achievement....A work of a vast range of topics...written with clarity, subtlety, and derived from sources in French, English, and German....A book anyone even pretending to a knowledge of monetary history must have."--Journal of Economic
History

"Will end up on many undergraduate reading lists, whilst its extensive bibliography will prove a boon to [those] working their way into the field."--Economic History Review

"A splendid book....It reads like Professor Kindleberger talking--which is surely high praise."--The World Economy

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0415378672
• ISBN 13: 9780415378673
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 530