Banking on global markets: Deutsche Bank and the United States, 1870 to the present, by Christopher Kobrak [review]

Christopher Kobrak’s study of Germany’s largest and most successful private bank and its dealings with the United States is a wonderful read, combining scrupulous attention to the minutiae of business history with real stylistic panache. Notwithstanding some unevenness in the structure and perceptions of individual issues, the book will certainly appeal to a wide range of economic historians on both sides of the Atlantic as well as to a broader audience of non-academic readers. It will appeal because, like the best histories of individual enterprises, it is admirably contextualised in the economic and political histories of both Europe and the United States – particularly in the earlier chapters – and secondly because it features a fascinating cast of dynamic adventurer capitalists who function as compelling vehicles of the narrative.