Without a means of crediting and debiting accounts worldwide and the non-physical transfer of funds, the rapid global economic integration of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries would have been impossible....

This history of the global securities market is the product of over 30 years of research by one of the world\'s foremost financial historians. It covers all aspects of the history of the securities markets from its beginnings in Medieval Venice through Amsterdam and London to its operations in Tokyo and New York today....