Battilossi, S., Cassis, Y. and Yago, K. (eds), Handbook of the History of Money and Currency (Springer, 2020) is an excellent guide to monetary history, including for example M. Hudson’s chapter on the origins of money used for Section 7.1, O. Volckart’s chapter on debasement used for Section 7.2 and N. Palma’s chapter on American precious metals in Europe underlying Box 7.1.

General overviews of financial development in history include Levine, R., ‘Financial development and economic growth: views and agenda’, Journal of Economic Literature 35 (1997), 688–726, which is a concise summary of the theoretical literature on banks and financial intermediaries. Rousseau, P. L., ‘Historical perspectives on financial development and economic growth’, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review (2003), 81–106, is a rare attempt to give econometric significance to the role of banks in early growth. Neal, L., The Rise of Financial Capitalism: International Capital Markets in the Age of Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1990) provides a pioneering quantitative study of the first phase of international capital markets. Grossman, R. S., Unsettled Account: The Evolution of Banking in the Industrialized World since 1800 (Princeton University Press, 2010) is a recent history of banking. A classic that links banking to catch-up development is Gerschenkron, A., Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Harvard University Press, 1962).

An excellent survey of the evolution of British banking, with a comparative perspective on Europe, is Quinn, S., ‘Money, finance and capital markets’, in Floud, R. and Johnson, P. (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, vol. 1 (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 147–74. Kennedy, W., Industry Structure, Capital Markets and the Origin of British Economic Decline (Cambridge University Press, 1987) argues that UK banks failed to modernize British industry. Collins, M. and Baker, M., Commercial Banks and Industrial Finance in England and Wales, 1860–1913 (Oxford University Press, 2003) provides a balanced overview of the merits and shortcomings of British banking.

Cassis, Y. (ed.), Finance and Financiers in European History 1880–1960 (Cambridge University Press, 1992) gives an overview of different financial systems in Europe – including an important chapter by Richard Tilly on German banking. Fohlin, C., Finance Capitalism and Germany’s Rise to Industrial Power (Cambridge University Press, 2007) challenges the conventional view of German banking. Fohlin provides a reinterpretation of the role of German banks in industrialization while downplaying the unique role of relationship banking. Guinnane, T. has written with insight on German and European banking and corporate structure; see for example ‘Delegated monitors, large and small: Germany’s banking system 1800–1914’, Journal of Economic Literature 40 (2002), 73–124. Lehmann-Hasemeyer, S. and Wahl, F., ‘The German bank-growth nexus revisited: savings banks and economic growth in Prussia’, Economic History Review 74 (2021), 204–22, provides a quantitative study of the impact of Prussian savings banks.

On the evolution of central banking see Goodhart, C., The Evolution of Central Banks (MIT Press, 1991).

Reinhart, C. M. and Rogoff, K. S., This Time It Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Princeton, 2009) is an impressive empirical study of the relationship between financial crises and external imbalances. There seems to be a high correlation between cross-border financial flows and sovereign default and banking crises. Quinn, W. and Turner, J., Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles (Cambridge, 2020) examine the most prominent financial bubbles since 1700 in detail.

Schmelzing, Paul, ‘Eight centuries of global real interest rates, R-G, and the “suprasecular” decline, 1311–2018’, Bank of England Staff Working Paper no. 845 (2020), provides a systematic collection and assessment of the evolution of interest rates.

Schularik, M. and Taylor, A. M. ‘Credit booms gone bust: monetary policy, leverage cycles and financial crises, 1870–2008’, American Economic Review 102(2) (2012), 1029–61 traces the fundamental change in banking practices discussed in Section 7.6.