1st Edition
Across the Borders Financing the World's Railways in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Until now we have only had relatively narrow economic studies comparing investments in railways with investments in other fields of individual economies. 'Across the Borders' not only opens the door for fundamental new insights into a trans-national view of railway history, but also contributes to a breakthrough in the wider study of the subject, providing the first extensive historical investigation of the worldwide system of railway financing. This book provides a wide introduction to how financiers, governments and entrepreneurs in Europe managed to face the challenges of constructing and maintaining an integrated railway network, both in their own countries and their colonies. This volume offers analysis from a selection of experts exploring the trans-national investment policies of railway construction based on numerous historical case-studies. The chapters provide insight into the international opportunities that existed for railway financing, from the perspective of economic, social, transport and railway history. With contributions from authors from 19 countries the volume is a truly international work that will be of interest to academic researchers, museum staff, archivists, and anyone who has an interest in the history and development of railways.
Biography
Ralf Roth teaches History at the faculty for philosophy and history at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University of Frankfurt, Germany, and Günter Dinhobl is in the Research & Development Division at Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB-Infrasttruktur Bau AG), Austria
’...the book, whose text is supplemented by over 500 footnotes, a twenty-page bibliography and a comprehensive index, will become an essential tool for investigating railway development outside Britain.’ Journal of the Railway and Canal Historical Society 'This book will be of interest to researchers of banking history as well as to economic and railway historians.' Bankhistorisches Archiv