From the end of the nineteenth century until the onset of the Great Depression, Wall Street embarked on a stunning, unprecedented, and often bloody period of international expansion in the Caribbean. A host of financial entities sought to control banking, trade, and finance in the region. In the process, they not only trampled local sovereignty, grappled with domestic banking regulation, and backed US imperialism—but they also set the model for bad behavior by banks, visible still today. In Bankers and Empire, Peter James Hudson tells the provocative story of this period, taking a close look at both the institutions and individuals who defined this era of American capitalism in the West Indies. Whether in Wall Street minstrel shows or in dubious practices across the Caribbean, the behavior of the banks was deeply conditioned by bankers’ racial views and prejudices. Drawing deeply on a broad range of sources, Hudson reveals that the banks’ experimental practices and projects in the Caribbean often led to embarrassing failure, and, eventually, literal erasure from the archives.

The collapse of communism in Central, East and South-East Europe (CESEE) led to great hopes for the region and for Europe. A quarter of a century on, the picture is mixed: in many CESEE countries, the transformation process is incomplete, and the economic catch-up has taken longer than anticipated. The current situation has highlighted the need for a better understanding of the long-term political and economic implications of the Central, East and South-East European historical experience. This thematically organised text offers a clear and comprehensive guide to the economic history of CESEE from 1800 to the present day. Bringing together authors from both East and West, the book also draws on the cutting-edge research of a new generation of scholars from the CESEE region. Presenting a thoroughly modern overview of the history of the region, the text will be invaluable to students of economic history and CESEE area studies.

This is the fascinating, detailed account of the rise and fall of the largest banking house ever before established in the South, whose financial misfeasance during the prosperous twenties led to its eventual collapse and brought ruin to numerous innocent investors. Caldwell and Company was founded in Nashville in 1917 by Rogers Caldwell, the son of a leading local banker and businessman. Beginning as a small underwriter and distributor of Southern municipal bonds, the firm soon branched out into real estate bonds and industrial securities as well. Control of important banks in Tennessee and Arkansas was acquired; newspapers, and even Nashville's professional baseball team, came under the firm’s ownership. Caldwell and Company was, truly, a pioneer conglomerate. Caldwell and Company also ventured into the realm of politics, supporting certain politicians (notably Colonel Luke Lea) with questionable benefits accruing to the firm, including substantial state deposits in Caldwells Bank of Tennessee. In November 1930 the firm went into receivership. Unethical practices, including overextension in the acquisition of banks, insurance companies, and other business, had already strain Caldwell and Company’s assets. With the 1929 collapse of stock prices. Rogers Caldwell could not meet the company’s obligations, and he began to squeeze all available cash from the various controlled firms. He also negotiated a merger between Caldwell and Company and Banco-Kentucky Company of Louisville—a transaction which must stand as one of the strangest deals in the annals of American business. Even the aforementioned State of Tennessee deposits, which helped float his empire for a while, could not prevent its collapse—a collapse which resulted in a multi-million dollar loss to Tennessee’s Treasury, public hysteria, and clamor for the impeachment of the Governor of Tennessee. Originally Published in 1939, this edition includes a new introduction in which the author comments on the long-run implications of the Caldwell episode and reports the outcome of legal actions, both civil and criminal, still pending at the time the book was first published.

The authors compare the ideologies of the free-market with religious faith, giving the World Bank the role of a secular church setting out to convert the world's underdeveloped economies to the consumer capitalist way, and so to create an enormous secular empire. This book is published in September 1994 to coincide with the World Bank's 50th annive