The first comprehensive financial history of the United States in more than thirty years. Accessible to undergraduate level readers, it focuses on the growth and expansion of banking, securities, and insurance from the colonial period right up to the incredible growth of the stock market during the 1990s and the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. The author traces the origins of American finance to the older societies of Europe and Northern Africa, and shows how English merchants transferred their financial systems to America. He explains how financial matters dominated the founding and development of the colonies, and how financial concerns incited the Revolution. And he shows how the Civil War began the transformation of America from a small economy largely dependent on foreign capital into a complex capitalist society. From the Civil War, the nation's financial history breaks down into periods of frenzied speculation, quiet growth, periodic panics, and furious periods of expansion, right up through the incredible growth of the stock market during the 1990s.

Originally published in 2002, this is the first of three volumes in a history of finance in America. This volume covers the period from the 'discovery' of America to the end of the nineteenth century. It describes the status of finance in Europe at the time of Christopher Columbus' voyage to America. It then traces its transfer and development in America through the Revolution, into the Civil War and beyond to the speculative excesses occurring after that event.

Narrates the ups and downs of American finance from the arrival of Columbus through the twentieth century.

First Published in 2014. This book maps the issues and traces the U.S. government's efforts to properly regulate, monitor, and prevent financial speculation and price manipulation in various markets. It begins with the period from the late nineteenth century to the first congressional efforts at regulation in the 1930s and continues on to the present, with a full chapter on the legal and financial aspects of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The book also discusses the difficulty of initiating successful prosecutions of financial fraud and price manipulation and proposes a new approach to preventing manipulative practices.

This new reference by the author of the critically acclaimed A Financial History of the United States covers the aftermath of the Enron-era scandals and the extraordinary financial developments during the period