List of figures; List of tables; List of contributors; Preface; 1. Introduction: comparative historical perspectives Richard Sylla, Richard Tilly and Gabriel Tortella; 2. Politics and banking in revolutionary and Napoleonic France François Crouzet; 3. Belgian banking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the Société Générale and the Générale de Banque (1822–1997) Herman van der Wee and Monique van der Wee-Verbreyt; 4. Banking liberalization in England and Wales, 1826–44 P. L. Cottrell and Lucy Newton; 5. Banking in Europe in the nineteenth century: the role of the central bank Forrest Capie; 6. Public policy, capital markets and the supply of industrial finance in nineteenth-century Germany Richard Tilly; 7. The role of banks and government in Spanish economic development, 1850–1935 Gabriel Tortella; 8. Central banking and German-style mixed banking in Italy, 1893/5–1914: from coexistence to cooperation Peter Hertner; 9. State power and finance in Russia, 1802–1917: the Credit Office of the Finance Ministry and governmental control over credit institutions Boris Anan'ich; 10. The origins of banking in Argentina Roberto Cortés Conde; 11. Shaping the US financial system, 1690–1913: the dominant role of public finance Richard Sylla; 12. Cosmopolitan finance in the 1920s: New York's emergence as an international financial centre Mira Wilkins; Index.