Best Books about the History of Banking
Hey everyone, I've been searching around trying to find a good book that offers a comprehensive history of banking. Just trying to see how those ancient mfs used to do stuff and make connections to the current system we have. Thanks in advance.
Bump
'The House of Morgan' - traces the ancient history of the Morgan family (you'll be surprised at how many generations they had, and the businesses they did before they got into banking), then follows JP Morgan the man himself, culminates with the formation of the bank. Plenty of juicy nuggets about how banking used to be done
'The Last Tycoons' - I'm not familiar with this one, but it traces the history of Lazard. It won Financial Times Best Business Book of the year so it should be of a minimum quality.
I 1st got into finance when I read a book of the history of the Rothschilds, in 6th grade
Because you were mentioning ancient stuff, my first pick would be all the Peter Bernstein books (read Against the Gods first, then the Capital Ideas series is great, as is Power of Gold). His books repeat a little bit of content between them, but he does a great job.
Ron Chernow’s book on the Warburgs is a masterpiece, but a really long one, so don’t know if you want to go there.
For the history of more recent investment banking activities, Barbarians at the Gate is probably my first choice. Yes, it’s PE-focused, but it’s such a great book and does have the IB concepts. The Caesar’s Palace Coup captures the feel of BATG better than any book I’ve read.
For IB, Liar’s Poker and Leveraged Sell-Out are kind of funny lifestyle books.
If you could give a few tidbits on whether you’re more interested in commercial banking or investment banking, I think I could offer more help here. If ancient stuff to the present is all you want, you can read Bernstein and be very well informed.
I haven't read anything by him but have heard a lot of rave reviews, I want to read his biography of Hamilton.
just finished the ascent of money by niall ferguson, and although niall reaches a bit with some inference, the history is good and it's not a bad place to start.
These 2 are more in the context of American finance (fyi haven't read either yet but they seem like good places to start):
Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich - a book about the financing of the American Revolution, as well as the early financial system of the US
The First Wall Street: Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, and the Birth of American Finance - a book about how we could have all been working in Center City instead of Wall Street
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