Through an examination of a wide variety of financial systems in Europe, and North and South America over approximately 150 years of change, this book demonstrates the key role that finance has played in economic change, and in the development of diverse financial systems. Insights into the primacy of the state’s role in the financial development of the pre-industrial era have not been carried over into the historiography of the industrial era itself, so the discoveries detailed in this book have never been brought together in a systematic manner. This book therefore aims to demonstrate through comparative historical analysis, the richness of the history of modern financial systems, and to restore the state to its primary role in the shaping of those systems. This book makes an interesting contribution to financial historiography, thus will be of interest to economists and financial, economic and world historians.