A History of the Global Stock Market: From Ancient Rome to Silicon Valley

by B. Mark Smith

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The stock market is central to the global economy. Tens of millions of people look to it to provide for a comfortable retirement. Central bankers watch it closely as they set monetary policy. Businesses around the world are forced to adjust the way they operate to meet the demands of equity investors. Yet very little has been written about how the modern global stock market came to be. In A History of the Global Stock Market, B. Mark Smith weaves an entertaining tale that ranges from medieval trading companies and nineteenth-century robber barons to modern theorists and international speculators. Here, Smith debunks the popular myth that the market is inevitably subject to recurring speculative bubbles and discredits the notion that the current "globalization" of the market is something radically different from what has occurred in the past.

Informative, entertaining, and written for specialists and non-specialists alike, A History of the Global Stock Market is a worthy read for anyone who wants to understand the role of the stock market in the global economy.

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Average Customer Review: 3 out of 5 stars

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

a decent, but cursory, overview of financial markets, 2006-04-02
i've been looking for a book that discusses the history of markets around the world, including stock markets, and this one does a decent job of filling part of that desire. what interests me is the way in which we, as humans, have gone from an idea of selling concrete things to abstract things, and how that's evolved over time.

smith's book starts with some of the precursors to the modern stock market, and he'll return to some of those markets (such as the french and german bourses) when the focus shifts to the american and london markets (which have come to dominate the global market perspective). quite a bit of the book seems to race to this time period, basically feeling like a big cheer for the american way. not that this is wrong, i just wanted a broader perspective.

as you might expect, because the book is written by an american in the past few years, it's lean on early history. it covers some interesting parts well, such as the rises and crashes in the early french markets, but it could do better. it also plays a decent bit to the japanese markets (and the huge asian market crash at the end of the 20th century), which is pretty nice, and it does a decent job of introducing options markets. it doesn't cover the russian markets well, or the overall trend of very small markets building up around the world currently. too little time to observe, says smith. and while this is accurate, it's not too early to discuss what forces are behind these changes more in depth.

while i'm still looking for that one great volume, this one is a fair start. 3 to 3.5 stars.

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