If stable and efficient banks are such a good idea, why are they so rare? -- The game of bank bargains -- Tools of conquest and survival : why states need banks -- Privileges with burdens : war, empire, and the monopoly structure of English banking -- Banks and democracy : Britain in the...

Commercial banks are among the oldest and most familiar financial institutions. When they work well, we hardly notice; when they do not, we rail against them. What are the historical forces that have shaped the modern banking system? In Unsettled Account, Richard Grossman takes the first truly...

Fighting financial crises: learning from the past -- The New York Clearing House Association -- The start of a panic -- What the New York Clearing House did during National Vanking Era panics -- Information production and suppression and emergency liquidity -- "Too big to fail" before the Fed --...