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The Bank of England: Money, Power and Influence, 1694-1994. Edited by Richard Roberts and David Kynaston . Oxford: Clarendon Press. x + 315 pp. Index and bibliography. $35.00. ISBN 0-19-828952-9.
Reviewed by Geoffrey Jones
This collection of essays originated at a conference to mark the Bank of England's tercentenary. As its longevity suggests, the Bank has one of the most interesting and important histories of any financial institution in the world. The story of its slow evolution as a central bank-still in private ownership until 1946-continues to fascinate. It stood at the heart of the world monetary system in the era of the Gold Standard before 1914. From the 1960s it presided over London's rebirth as the world's leading financial center in the era of global capital and money markets.
The Bank of England has been well-served by a series of major scholarly histories, and the approach taken in this volume is not to duplicate this research, but to provide a series of long-term surveys of key themes in the Bank's history. This has produced a valuable collection of essays covering a wide range of issues. H. V. Bowen discusses the formative era of the Bank before 1820, by which date it had become an accepted national institution. David Kynaston, Alex Cairncross and Richard Roberts take long-term looks at the...