With chapters focusing on a number of European countries, as well as North and South America, and covering approximately 150 years of development, this book demonstrates the key role that finance has played in economic change. Thanks to the variety of countries studied, it is shown that financial systems did not develop uniformly; on the contrary, divergent systems came into being and persisted. Insights into the primacy of the state's role in the financial development of the pre-industrial era have not carried over into the historiography of the industrial era itself, so never before have the insights developed here been brought together in a systematic manner. The aim is 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. The book makes a unique contribution to financial historiography, and thus will be of interest to economists and to financial, economic and world historians.