This book examines financial markets from a historical perspective. Bringing together contributions from leading historians of economic thought, economists and economic historians, it offers an integrated approach and reflects on the workings of financial markets, their impact on and relation...

Introduction -- Part I: Guggenheim Prize Lecture -- The Myth of Money as a Veil -- Part II: Financial History -- British Investment Trusts 1868 to 1928: Portfolio Diversification and the Beginnings of Institutional Investment -- Early Reflections on the Democratization of Organized Markets and...

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of illustrations -- List of contributors -- Introduction -- Part I Before the two world wars -- 1 The food weapon: milestones in the history of a concept (17th-19th centuries) -- 2 Why the wars? And how to pay for them? A comparison between Hume...