Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market by Walter Bagehot
This century-plus old description of the success of British bankers and fractional reserve banking still feels fresh today. Britain became the banker of the world and was able to provide financing for many large projects as well as the continued involvement in trade. Rather than a centralized banking authority, Britain had a various banks competing with each other. Even the bank of last resort, the Bank of England, was a private entity with a special "too good to fail" mandate. The author compares British banking to that of France that is controlled by the mandate of the government. France was not able to move as quickly or provide the same benefit as British banking.
As part of the discussion the author discusses some of the political issues of the day that related to banking. I suppose that would have been at the top of mind at the time, but today that is the one part that did not seem relevant.
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