Money and power: Essays in honour of L.S. Pressnell

A collection of essays written by former students, colleagues and friends of Professor Leslie Pressnell in honour of his 65th birthday and his scholarship in the field of financial history. The first five essays are concerned with British monetary history over the last half of the nineteenth century, examining in particular the relationships between banks and the trade cycle, concentration and profitability in British banking, and the money supply. The second half of the book, consisting of four essays, has as its theme the inter-relations of finance and politics through examinations of financing of the First World War, the attitude of English manafacturers towards exchange rate policy in the 1920s, North Atlantic commercial and financial negotiations in the 1930s and finally, the problems of public debt management from the early 1930s until the early 1950s. These essays provide new estimates of monetary and financial variables from original research on primary material. Essays dealing with developments after 1914 aim to bring out the primacy of financial problems for politicians.