Description
Book SynopsisRulers and Capital in Historical Perspective explains why modern banking and credit systems emerged in the nineteenth century only in certain countries that then subsequently industrialized and became developed. Tracing the contemporaneous cases of India and the United States over time, Abhishek Chatterjee identifies the factors that were crucial to the development and regulation of a modern banking and credit system in the United States during the first third of the nineteenth century. He contrasts this situation with India's, where the state never formally incorporated a sophisticated private credit system, and thus relegated it to the sphere of the informal economy. Chatterjee identifies certain features in both societies, oftenthough not alwaysassociated with colonialism, that tended to restrict the formation of modern institutionalized money and credit markets. Rulers and Capital in Historical Perspective demonstrates thatnotwithstanding the many other differences between the
Trade Review"[A]n innovative contribution.... [Chatterjee's] arguments are supported by an assortment of secondary sources in eloquent prose and are certainly thought-provoking.... Chatterjee’s creative scholarship will now inform the debate on this divergence between India and the United States and will hopefully stimulate more interest in comparative studies on financial development across more regions of the world."--
Business History Review
