You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Nowadays remembered mostly through Adam Smith’s references to the short-lived Ayr Bank in the Wealth of Nations, the 1772-3 financial crisis was an important historical episode in its own right, taking place during a pivotal period in the development of financial capitalism and coinciding with the start of the traditional industrialisation narrative. It was also one of the earliest purely financial crises occurring in peacetime, and its progress showed an impressive geographical reach, involving England, Scotland, the Netherlands and the North American colonies. This book uses a variety of previously unpublished archival sources to question the bubble narrative usually associated with this...
As the meeting point between Europe, colonial America, and Africa, the history of the Atlantic world is a constantly shifting arena, but one which has been a focus of huge and vibrant debate for many years. In over thirty chapters, all written by experts in the field, The Atlantic World takes up these debates and gathers together key, original scholarship to provide an authoritative survey of this increasingly popular area of world history. The book takes a thematic approach to topics including exploration, migration and cultural encounters. In the first chapters, scholars examine the interactions between groups which converged in the Atlantic world, such as slaves, European migrants and Nat...
Between 1756 and 1840, philanthropy in the British world grew from the domain of small, associational committees to a vast enterprise of philanthropic and humanitarian societies with global reach. British Philanthropy in the Globalizing World tells the story of this movement, from its inception in small networks of mercantile and religious entrepreneurs to its signal projects and achievements in the abolition of slavery, in evangelical missionary societies, Bible societies, and in the early indigenous rights movement. It traces the lives and networks of hundreds of philanthropists across four generations, showing how their social, religious, economic, intellectual, and cultural worlds inters...
An innovative account of how thousands of acts of parliament sought to improve economic activity during the early industrial revolution.
This book brings together for the first time more than half a dozen proposals for an imperial paper currency in the mid-eighteenth century British Atlantic, to show how manage colonial currency and banking in the expanding empire. Existing studies have looked at the successes and failures of schemes in individual colonies. But some had grander ambitions, such as Benjamin Franklin, and offered proposals for ‘imperial’ or ‘continental’ paper currencies and monetary unions which would help knit together colonial territories throughout North America and even the Caribbean into a cohesive whole during a moment of imperial reform. This book brings together these proposals for the first tim...
Modern legal history is increasingly interested in exploring the development of legal systems from novel and nuanced approaches. This edited collection harnesses the lesser-researched perspectives of the impact of global and imperial factors on the development of law. It is argued that to better understand these timely discussions, we must understand the process and significance of colonisation itself. The volume brings together experts in the field of law and history to explore the ways in which law and lawyers contributed to the expansion of the British Empire, and the ways in which the Empire influenced the Metropole. The book sheds new light on the role of the law and legal actors during the pivotal centuries that saw the establishment of the Empire. Exploring such topics as Atlantic relations, the impact of British jurists upon Indian law, and the development of the law settler colonies, this collection reveals some of the lesser-known intersections between law, history, and empire. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in legal history, comparative history, equity and trusts, contract law, the legal profession, slavery, and the British Empire.
This book offers an analysis of the contemporary significance of the practice of Lender of Last Resort (LOLR) in Pakistan. Aiming to identify deficiencies in current financial system legislation, the book details the role of LOLR and its essential presence in establishing a resilient banking and financial system. Beginning with an assessment of the emergence of Central Banks as domestic financial regulators, the book draws from the principles of Walter Bagehot and Henry Thornton for LOLR rescue operations. Examining the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) role as an international lender of last resort and scrutinising its rescue efforts, the book uses case studies of the Central Banks in t...
This book reassesses the actual effects of the Bubble Act, still popularly associated with the bursting of the South Sea Bubble. The book builds on the foundational work of Ron Harris to discuss the act’s effect on corporate governance, literary culture, colonial law, and the Industrial Revolution. The Bubble Act was deemed an empty letter within England itself as it was rarely used in legal proceedings. Several chapters consider whether this was the case outside England, from Scotland to the Americas, India, and Africa. Others assess the impact of the act, both on literary culture and in the history of economic thought. The act has been conceptualized as a brake on economic development or of little consequence. This edited collection offers a timely reassessment of the Bubble Act and its legacy.
An intimate account of the eighteenth-century Bank of England that shows how a private institution became “a great engine of state” The eighteenth-century Bank of England was an institution that operated for the benefit of its shareholders—and yet came to be considered, as Adam Smith described it, “a great engine of state.” In Virtuous Bankers, Anne Murphy explores how this private organization became the guardian of the public credit upon which Britain’s economic and geopolitical power was based. Drawing on the voluminous and detailed minute books of a Committee of Inspection that examined the Bank’s workings in 1783–84, Murphy frames her account as “a day in the life” o...
Shareholder inspection rights form an important tool for shareholder protection. They offer shareholders seeking information private access to specific books and records of the company that are otherwise not publicly available. While there has been a discourse on the topic in some jurisdictions such as Delaware (USA), it has not received scholarly treatment at an international level. This Research Handbook seeks to alter that, and signifies the first endeavor to engage in a comprehensive and comparative analysis of shareholder inspection.