Why do stock and housing markets sometimes experience amazing booms followed by massive busts and why is this happening more and more frequently? Boom and Bust reveals why bubbles happen, and why some bubbles have catastrophic economic, social and political consequences, whilst others have actually benefited society.

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. It is the globalization of the banking system, much of which, particularly in Asia, had its roots in the nineteenth century, that helped facilitate increased human mobility, the exchange of commodities and manufactures, and the simplified transfer of funds. This volume examines the origins, growth, and business practices of European banks in Asia, and the development of Asian (notably Japanese and Hong Kong) banks, and their operations on an international stage, and in doing so, provides important new detail and analysis of economic globalization. It draws on the archival documentation of main British, French, and Japanese banks involved and provides analysis from a range of historical viewpoints, including global banking strategy, monetary regimes, financial markets, international trade, labour immigration, and the development of communication tools.

The world's largest market is that for foreign exchange with a turnover running into trillions per day. The mystery is why this market is dominated by trading in London when the US dollar is the main currency in use. What role is played by this market? To many it is a speculator's paradise, exposed to manipulation and contributing to currency volatility. For others it plays a central role in in the operation of the global banking system and a mechanism for maintaining currency stability. In Forex Forever, Ranald C. Michie seeks to provide answers to these and other questions by examining how the foreign exchange market has developed in the City of London over the past 150 years and uncovers its secret existence in London before the First World War. Michie explores how the City of London became the centre of the global foreign exchange market before 1914 through the international banking network, trading on the floor of the Stock Exchange, and the communications revolution that began with the telegraph. He investigates how that position was sufficient to make London the centre of a new foreign exchange market that emerged between the wars, survived the era of fixed exchange rates after the Second World War, and then flourished from 1970 onwards. This in-depth study helps to explain how and why the global monetary system has functioned since the middle of the nineteenth century.

The Global Financial Crisis made its first appearance in Britain towards the end of 2007 with the failure of the Northern Rock Bank. It then reached an unparalleled intensity a year later when the government was forced to intervene to prevent the collapse of Lloyds/HBOS and RBS/Natwest. Before these events the British banking system possessed a long established reputation for resilience and competence that made it one of the most admired and trusted in the world. The financial crisis of 2007/8, and the subsequent revelations about the behaviour of bankers, destroyed that reputation and drove a desire for a complete reform of the British banking system. Forgotten in this headlong rush towards radical restructuring were the reasons why the British banking system had become so admired and trusted. The aim of this book is to explain why the British banking system gained its reputation for resilience and competence, maintained it for over 100 years, and then lost it in such a rapid and spectacular fashion. To achieve that aim requires a study of the entire banking system. Banks are key components of a complex financial system continually interacting with each other, and constantly changing over time, This makes the conventional distinctions drawn between different types of banks, including those specialising in international finance, savings and loans, corporate lending, and retail deposits and borrowing, inappropriate for any long-term analysis. The distinctions between different types of banks were neither absolute nor permanent but relative and temporary. Banks were also central to both the payments system and the money market without which no modern economy could function. What this book is about is the development of the British banking system as a whole over more than three centuries. Only with such an understanding is it possible to appreciate what the British banking system achieved and then maintained from the middle of the 19th century onwards, why it was lost in such a short space of time, and what needs to be done to return it to the position it once occupied. Without such an understanding the mistakes of the recent past are destined to be repeated time and gain.

As the debate about an Australian Republic becomes more heated, this first detailed study examines the relationship of the Australian colonies with Britain and the Empire in the late nineteenth century and looks at the beginnings of Australian nationalism.