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Two of the greatest financial fiascos of all time took place at the same time and were instigated by two acquaintances, both considered financial geniuses while their fortunes lasted, The Mississippi Bubble and The South Sea Bubble. This book tells the story of these two financial schemes.

Offers an economic analysis of the Kipper und Wipper inflation of 1619-23, the most serious German inflation before the hyperinflation following World War I, with a focus on how it affected people's lives and behaviour.

It has become commonplace to think that globalization has produced a race to the bottom in terms of labor standards and quality of life: the cheaper the labor and the lower the benefits afforded workers, the more competitively a country can participate on the global stage. But in this book the distinguished economic historian Michael Huberman demonstrates that globalization has in fact been very good for workers quality of life, and that improved labor conditions have promoted globalization.

This highly original work explores a previously unknown financial conspiracy at the start of the American Civil War. The book explains the reasons for the puzzling intensity of Missouris guerrilla conflict, and for the states anomalous experience in Reconstruction. In the broader history of the war, the book reveals for the first time the nature of military mobilization in the antebellum United States.

How did the United States come to have its distinctive workplace-based health insurance system? This book explores the history of health insurance in the US from its roots in the 19th-century sickness funds offered by industrial employers and labour unions to the rise of group plans such as Blue Cross Blue Shield in the mid-twentieth century.

In 1918, the Soviet revolutionary government repudiated the Tsarist regime's sovereign debt, triggering one of the biggest sovereign defaults ever. Yet the price of Russian bonds remained high for years. Combing French archival records, Kim Oosterlinck shows that, far from irrational, investors had legitimate reasons to hope for repayment. Soviet debt recognition, a change in government, a bailout by the French government, or French banks, or a seceding country would have guaranteed at least a partial reimbursement. As Greece and other European countries raise the possibility of sovereign default, Oosterlinck's superbly researched study is more urgent than ever.

Vice is endemic to Western capitalism, according to this fascinating, wildly entertaining, often startling history of modern finance. Ian Klaus’s Forging Capitalism demonstrates how international financial affairs in the nineteenth century were conducted not only by gentlemen as a noble pursuit but also by connivers, thieves, swindlers, and frauds who believed that no risk was too great and no scheme too outrageous if the monetary reward was substantial enough. Taken together, the grand deceptions of the ambitious schemers and the determined efforts to guard against them have been instrumental in creating the financial establishments of today. In a story teeming with playboys and scoundrels and rich in colorful and amazing events, Klaus chronicles the evolution of trust through three distinct epochs: the age of values, the age of networks and reputations, and, ultimately, in a world of increased technology and wealth, the age of skepticism and verification. In today’s world, where the questionable dealings of large international financial institutions are continually in the spotlight, this extraordinary history has great relevance, offering essential lessons in both the importance and the limitations of trust.

As China emerges as a global powerhouse, this timely book examines its economic past and the shaping of its financial institutions.The first comparative study of foreign banking in prewar China, the book surveys the impact of British overseas bank notes on China's economy before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Focusing on the two leading British banks in the region, it assesses the favorable and unfavorable effects of the British presence in China, with particular emphasis on Shanghai, and traces instructive links between the changing political climate and banknote circulation volumes.Drawing on recently declassified archival materials, Niv Horesh revises previous assumptions about China's prewar economy, including the extent of foreign banknote circulation and the economic significance of the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925.