The Foundation of the Bank of England
Nicholas Lane discusses the reasons of business and war that led to the establishment of a national bank in London in 1694.
Economic History
The Tents of Kedar: Pre-European Africa
Despite its isolation from the mainstream of human development, Basil Davidson writes, African society before the coming of the Europeans was neither savage nor stagnant.
The Fur Empires of the North
George Woodcock describes the industry, expeditions, and characters that opened the American North West to European development.
The Beginnings of the English Newspaper
Graham Dukes traces the birth of the press to the English Civil War period.
The History of El Dorado: British Guiana Since 1600
Charles Dimont traces the establishment and development of Britain's South American dependency.
Prelude to Independence: The American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century
Eric Robson provides the social and economic backdrop to the outbreak of revolutionary war between the nascent USA and her British colonial masters.
The Steelyard of London Since the Twelfth Century
L.W. Cowie explains how the Hansard merchants from northern Germany maintained their own Community in London from medieval times until 1852.
Gold-Rush Banker: Falconer Larkworthy
Patricia Wright profiles Falconer Larkworthy, a man who served in the banks of both Australia and New Zealand during the great Gold Rush of the 1850s.
Elizabethan England in the Year of Shakespeare’s Birth
Shakespeare was born into an England rejoicing in the peace and prospects of a new reign, but anxious about the future, writes Joel Hurstfield.
A Fifteenth-Century Merchant family
A solid middle-class clan who exported English wool to foreign markets, the Celys have left behind them a graphic record of their private affairs and shrewd commercial dealings, as Alison Hanham here finds.