Customer Reviews

Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (Wiley Investment Classics)

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Walter Bagehot was the first editor of the now world-famous Economist magazine, which has in many ways remained faithful to the liberal philosophy (in a European sense)of its founder. Lombard Street might be difficult to read at first, but as with Charles Dickens once you get used to the style the tale is riveting. And his advice on how a central bank, as the lender of last resort, should behave in the face of a banking crisis remains valid to this day.

Can a book about finance written in 1873 be helpful in a world with complex financial markets and plenty of information about how they work? The answer is yes. It is not that "Lombard Street" is a classic that one finds quoted many a time; the reader's interest should transcend historical inquiry or curiosity; "Lombard Street" should be read and revered by anyone interested in the underlying, abiding features of financial markets.

But what are those characteristics? Bagehot, then editor of The Economist, writes that credit centers on trust: "Credit means that a certain confidence is given, a certain trust reposed." And, banks always have on-demand liabilities that far exceed their readily available assets. In short, credit works on trust, and the system, in the absence of trust, can fall apart rapidly.

What follows from these premises is a careful examination of how the money market came about, what its uses are, how its operations are connected to trade and country's overall welfare, and, most importantly, how central banks can deal with financial crises. Written elegantly, "Lombard Street" is, at the same time, an introductory overview of the market and a trenchant analysis of its most salient features.

But what makes "Lombard Street" timeless is that it deals with finance in its human form. Bagehot talks about power, prestige and perception as much as he does about interest, discount, and credit. Trust is based on institutions and people: the human features of finance-trust, anxiety, mania, optimism-are timeless and apply to the financial markets of the nineteenth, twentieth, or twenty-first century. That is why "Lombard Street" is an ever useful introduction and guide.

Wiley Investment Classics generally fall into two categories, tough and dreary reads full of information, and lively entertaining accounts which also educate. Unfortunately, Mr. Bagehot and Mr. Bernstein's text is the former. The book does an outstanding job of promoting the importance of a strong central banking system and the importance of strict credit control when combating financial crises. However, it does so amidst extremely repetitive and somewhat painful language. The authors provide outstanding quantitative and anecdotal evidence supporting their case, but they do so in such a way that makes the book a true labor to read.

This book would be very beneficial to anyone doing research on, or working for some kind of central banking organization. Otherwise, I would suggest looking to any of the other Wiley Investment Classics for a more interesting and educational read about finance.

This is an excellent book. But this edition is extremely poorly produced. There are far too many typos, and little information about the original publication of the book, for example. The layout is ugly. It's great the book is cheap, but I wish I had paid a little more for a nicer version.

I'm about 1/3 into this book, and it's excellent. I wish I had read it many years ago. But I have to wince at the terrible job Echo Library did in printing it.

It's full of obvious missing spaces so that words run together, likethesewords.
This happens on almost every page. The author, Walter Bagehot, includes some actual balance sheets from the Bank of England as examples. Yet Echo Library fails to align the figures into columns. Instead it appears as a bunch of jibberish.

It appears that Echo Library somehow acquired a text file of the book, perhaps as a Word document or something, and then simply output that onto paper and binder, and then shipped the books, without even glancing at the results, let alone proof reading it.

Also, apparently to save paper, the publisher made the type size a bit small, and made the page column a bit wide. That saves paper alright, and makes it a thinner book, but it makes it harder to read. But it's still worth reading because Bagehot is so good.

MY RECOMMENDATION: It's an excellent writing by Bagehot, first class. But buy it by another publisher.

Brand new book, exactly as described. Super fast shipping. Would buy from this seller again. Thanks!

The great Victorian book about what we now call central banking really needs to introduction. It is every bit as brilliant and relevant as it was when written, a century and a half ago.

This edition, however is sub-par, to say the list. Clearly no one proofed the text, and it has about five of six glaring cases of bad or missing punctuation per page, not to mention typos.

In short, go get another edition of the book.

The stars are for the edition, not the book.

The April 30, 2011 edition from CreateSpace (which probably actually is a copy shop) does not look like a book. It looks like a leaflet from Jehova's witnesses. It's flimsy, in a weird large format, and with no information about publisher, date of publishing etc. If you have any aesthetic sensibility you should get a different edition of this classic book.

This type of product should either come with a warning "not a real book" or not be sold on amazon at all.

An engrossing read for anyone who has an interest in business and economic history as written by contemporaries of yesteryear. Enjoy!