Preface; 1. Introduction Harold James; 2. Political disputes about the role of banks Gerald D. Feldman; 3. Universal banking in interwar Central Europe Fritz Weber; 4. Comparing the interwar banking history of five small countries in north-west Europe Ulf Olsson; 5. American bankers and Britain's fall from gold Diane B. Kunz; 6. Banks and the problem of capital shortage in Germany, 1918–23 Gerald D. Feldman; 7. State, banks and industry in Sweden, with some reference to the Scandinavian countries Mats Larsson; 8. State, banks and industry in Belgium and The Netherlands, 1919–39 Guy Vanthemsche; 9. Investment behaviour of industrial joint-stock companies and industrial shareholding by the Österreichische Credit-Anstalt: inducement or obstacle to renewal and change in industry in interwar Austria Alois Mosser and Alice Teichova; 10. Financing of Hungarian industry by the Commercial Bank of Pest: a case study Elizabeth A. Boross; 11. The rise and fall of German-inspired mixed banking in Italy, 1894–1936 Douglas J. Forsyth; 12. Banking and economic development in interwar Greece Mark Mazower; 13. Why Canadian banks did not collapse in the 1930s Ian M. Drummond; 14. Japanese banks and national economic policy, 1920–36 W. Miles Fletcher III; Index.

"...a book made in heaven for monetary economists of the comparative-historical-institutional-interdisciplinary persuasion....a wide-ranging collection of essays--every one of them rich in institutional and historical detail....the reader comes away with a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between the macroeconomic crises of the 1920s and 1930s and the political-economic factors behind the widespread restructuring of domestic financial systems in the 1930s." Jane Knodell, Journal of Economic Issues