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.