Globalization is not an external force but a result of concrete business decisions made by millions of entrepreneurs and managers across the world. As such, the modern corporation has completely altered the economic landscape and business and finance have shaped the international order of the modern world. In this book, archivists and financial historians investigate the ways in which this has happened. The contributors, all leading scholars of banking and financial history, draw on often hitherto unused archival sources from central banks and other institutions to reveal the unique histories of a variety of European countries and the paths that have led to the contemporary economic and financial system. In doing so, they reveal new insights into some of the most influential and important topics of the modern era: inflation, stabilization, globalization, and modernity.
