This work establishes the existence of a sophisticated and smoothly functioning system of financial markets in the mercantile states of northwestern Europe throughout the 1700s. Based on computer analysis of thousands of price quotes from the financial press of the eighteenth century, the results should force both historians and economists to re-evaluate their understanding of the evolution of financial markets and their importance for the economic developments of that era.

‘Everything one would expect from the culmination of a 15-year research project by one of America’s leading economic historians of Europe.’

Source: The Journal of Economic History

‘In bringing capital market operations into new focus, Neal has brought new life to an old debate and has produced a book that deserves to be widely read and discussed.’

Source: The Times Higher Education Supplement