Ulrich Bindseil, Central banking before 1800: a rehabilitation, Oxford University Press, 2019, 336 pages

Many of us raised in the Anglo tradition had the impression that the Bank of England (BoE) had been the first central bank. With a bit more time and some slightly less superficial perspective, we became hazily aware that Sveriges Riksbank had been founded 26 years earlier. Ulrich Bindseil’s new book decisively corrects those impressions.

The author’s day job is director-general of market