This history of the global securities market is the product of over 30 years of research by one of the world's foremost financial historians. It covers all aspects of the history of the securities markets from its beginnings in Medieval Venice through Amsterdam and London to its operations in Tokyo and New York today. It also integrates the history of both stocks and bonds, established and emerging markets, stock exchanges and over-the- counter trading, and thecrises and continuity that have made the global securities market such a force in the world over the centuries. A path-breaking book unlike any other written before, it provides in one volume an authoritative account of the global securities market from its earliest developments to the present day.