Charles Poor Kindleberger

Charles Kindleberger's World Economic Primacy: 1500-1990 is a work of rare ambition and scope from one of our most respected economic historians. Extending over broad ranges of both history and geography, the work considers what it is that enables countries to achieve, at some period in their history, economic superiority over other countries, and what it is that makes them decline. Kindleberger begins with the Italian city-states in the fourteenth century, and traces the changing evolution of world economic primacy as it moves to Portugal and Spain, to the Low countries, to Great Britain, and to the United States, addressing the question of alleged U.S. decline. Additional chapters treat France as a perennial challenger, Germany which has twice aggressively sought superiority, and Japan, which may or may not become a candidate for the role of "number one.". Kindleberger suggests that the economic vitality of a given country goes through a trajectory that can usefully (though not precisely) be compared to a human life cycle. Like human beings, the growth of a state can be cut off by accident or catastrophe short of old age; unlike human beings, however, economies can have a second birth. In World Economic Primacy, Kindleberger takes into account the influence of complex historical, social, and cultural factors that determine economic leadership. A brilliant overview of the position of nations in the world economy, World Economic Primacy conveys profound insights into the causes of the rise and decline of the world's economic powers, past and present.

The World Economy and National Finance in Historical Perspective is a collection of essays and lectures by the distinguished economist, Charles P. Kindleberger. The main topic is the world economy of the past, present, and future, but the author also turns his deep historical understanding on a cluster of national financial problems faced by the United States and Germany. The essays deal with the world economy and the place within it of the United States and Europe. Other topics treated include the succession of world economic leaders, and the spread of booms and crashes from one country to another, the quality of debt, financial intermediation and disintermediation, and the German inflation of 1919-23. In an important discussion of the role of the United States in the world economy, the author places special emphasis on the responsibility that a country with such a leading economic role has of bringing about and maintaining economic stability. This will appeal to economists, especially economic historians, and will be of interest to the financial community.

This is the first history of finance - broadly defined to include money, banking, capital markets, public and private finance, international transfers and the like - that covers Western Europe (with an occasional glance at the Western Hemisphhere) and half a millenium. Charles Kindleberger highlights the development of financial institutions to meet emerging needs, and the similarities and contrasts in the handling of financial problems such as transferring resources from one country to another, investment or financing war and cleaning up the resulting monetary mess. The first half of the book covers money, banking and finance from about 1450 to 1913; the second deals in considerably more detail with the twentieth century. This major work casts current issues in historical perspective and throws lights on the fascinating - and far from orderly - evolution of financial institutions and the management of financial problems. Comprehensive, critical and cosmoplitan, A Financial History of Western Europe is both an outstanding work of reference in the study and practice of finance, be they economic historians, financial experts, scholarly bankers or students of money and banking.

"Manias, Panics, and Crashes probes the most recent natural disasters of the markets - from Black Monday to the Japanese boom and bust, from the sterling crisis and peso devaluation to the explosion in today's technology stocks.". "Kindleberger's writing leads the reader through a myriad of financial free falls. From the currency devaluation in the Holy Roman Empire in 1618, through the California gold rush of the 1840s and '50s to the crash of 1987, all the way up to the present day, his sharply drawn history confronts a host of key questions: In the ups and downs of market behavior, where is the line between rational and irrational? Are the markets a fool's paradise in an explosive world? When the storm expands to dangerous proportions, who will calm the panic? Should a "lender of last resort" intervene to repair the wreckage?" "Manias, Panics, and Crashes can be regarded as a warning or a proposition, reminding readers, in many ways, that what goes around comes around. Like all true classics, Kindleberger's book remains timely - for better or for worse."--BOOK JACKET.