The City of London, v.2: Golden Years, 1890-1914

Between 1890 and 1914 the City of London was all-dominant, as Britain's legendary gold-standard reigned supreme across the globe. Golden Years shows how this was possible, anatomises an elite at the height of its powers, and shows how the relationship between finance and politics became dangerously close. Running through this book is a wonderfully vivid, three dimensional portrait of the Stock Exchange, the City's pulse. this muscular, rumour-ridden club of gentlemen and would-be gentlemen is brought to life as never before, in incidents like the Marconi scandal, the Battle of Throgmorton Street, the murderof a stockbroker by his mistree on Lord Mayor's Day. There seemed no reason why it should ever stop and Golden Years ends with a portrait of the City in action in the summer of 1914, sweating over deals, looking to the short term, never dreaming that its world would shortly change for ever. Drawing on an unparrelled range of original source material, David kynaston continues his superb work of bringing the City of London for the first time into the mainstream of British and international history.