Crossing Continents

Oct 28, 2024 2:31 AM

Author:Duncan Campbell-Smith

Crossing Continents

For almost a hundred years from the 1860s, the City of London's overseas banks financed the global trade that lay at the core of the British Empire. Foremost among them from the beginning were two start-up ventures: the Standard Bank of South Africa, which soon developed a powerful domestic franchise at the Cape, and the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China. This book traces their stories in the nineteenth century, their glory days before 1914 - and their remarkable survival in the face of global wars and the collapse of world trade in the first half of the twentieth century.

The unravelling of the Empire after 1945 eventually forced Britain's overseas banks to confront a different future. The Standard and the Chartered, alarmed at the expansion of American banking, determined in 1969 on a merger as a way of sustaining the best of the City's overseas traditions. But from the start, Standard Chartered had to grapple with the fading fortunes of its own inherited franchise - badly dented in both Asia and Africa - and with radical changes in the nature of banking. Its British managers, steeped in the past, proved ill-suited to the challenge. By the late 1980s, efforts to expand in Europe and the USA had brought the merged Group to the brink of collapse.

Yet it survived - and then pulled off a dramatic recovery. Standard Chartered realigned itself, just in time, with the phenomenal growth of Asia's 'emerging markets', many of them in countries where the Chartered had flourished a century earlier. In the process, the Group was transformed. Trebling its workforce, it brushed aside the global financial crisis of 2008 and by 2012 could look back on a decade of astonishing growth. Recent times have added an eventful postscript to a long and absorbing history.

Crossing Continents recounts Standard Chartered's story with a wealth of detail from one of the richest archives available to any commercial bank. The book also affords a rare and compelling perspective on the evolution of international trade and finance, showing how Britain's commercial influence has actually worked in practice around the world over one hundred and fifty years.

Reviews

excellent ... Duncan Campbell-Smith's sparkling new account of Standard Chartered Bank ... is a door-stopping, desk-breaking heavyweight tome ... of patient text and brilliantly evocative photographs. Campbell-Smith, a former banker and journalist, had access to Standard Chartered's rich archive, and what emerges is work of painstaking scholarship. Multiple sources are woven together into a compelling record of imperial and post-imperial banking

—— Philip Augar , Financial Times

A well-written treat . . . Using examples including the Bank of England canteen, The Simpsons and Beanie Babies, the authors encourage us all to understand, and even challenge, what economists do.

—— Professor David Spiegelhalter, author of THE ART OF STATISTICS

An enjoyable introduction to the so-called dismal science . . . Patel and Meaning have done an admirable job in simplifying and popularising some of the key elements of their subject.

—— The Times

A great place to start your economic journey. With the Bank of England as your guide, this accessible book shows how economics affects so many aspects of our daily lives.

—— Dr Linda Yueh, author of THE GREAT ECONOMISTS

A well-timed attempt to show the public what goes on inside the Bank of England - and familiarise them with some basic economic concepts . . . Punctuated with jaunty anecdotes and neat examples.

—— Guardian

A good introduction to concepts such as inflation, quantitative easing, supply and globalisation.

—— New Statesman

A very readable guide to economics . . . contains some great facts . . . Entertaining.

—— Daily Mail

Economics affects every aspect of our lives, but it can often seem like an inaccessible, off-puttingly jargon-laden subject. This is the guide you need! An entertaining and essential read at a time when understanding how our money, governments and banks interact has never felt more important.

—— Laura Whateley, author of MONEY: A USER'S GUIDE

The authors want to inspire a new generation of economists, both at school level and among older students . . . If Patel and Meaning could help turn that tide, they will have performed a great public service.

—— Alex Brummer , Daily Mail

[One of] a range of accessible introductory books that can give people a basic understanding of the subject that may even prompt them to dig deeper . . . A great primer.

—— City A.M.

Wirecard might still be one of Europe's most feted tech firms, were it not for a small band of sceptics - including Dan McCrum... Wirecard fought back viciously and dirtily ... Money Men should be required reading for investors and financial regulators. It is a compelling case study of a seemingly eternal truth: when a business is built on lies, there are always clues.

—— Economist

A fantastic book. Think of Dan as a bespectacled James Bond with a keyboard instead of a gun.

—— Steve Clapham, author of The Smart Money Method

This behind-the-scenes look into the years of work and the persistence that was required to topple Wirecard is nothing short of incredible.

—— AltFi

Money Men is a rip-roaring ride into the underworld of the global economy. Dan McCrum is a proper reporter: there is no threat, con trick or hangover that will stand in his way. In today's pandemic of lies, courageous journalism like this is the medicine.

—— Tom Burgis, Sunday Times bestselling author of Kleptopia

A milestone in the history of investigative journalism.

—— Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of Germany, awarding the Reporters Forum Reporterpreis

The blistering tale of a clutch of hard-charging international commodity trading houses such as Cargill and Glencore. The authors, both former FT journalists, trace how they harnessed the commodity boom and the setbacks they now face as climate change casts a shadow over their business model.

—— Andrew Hill, FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Longlist , Financial Times

A very impressive profile of an industry that has long preferred to avoid the spotlight . . . The authors deftly weave stories of the individual traders and their trades with an account of the major shifts in the global economy of the past 70 years . . . Extensively researched and well written throughout . . . I would not hesitate to recommend this book.

—— International Affairs

A thriller . . . An engaging story of secret deals and embargo-evasion.

—— Forbes

An entertaining history of the rise of the international trading houses and the charismatic, freewheeling risk-takers who headed them.

—— Books of the Year , Financial Times

The story of how a few commodity-trading firms quietly reconfigured the world economy, making fortunes, juggling embargoes and swaying geopolitics.

—— Books of the Year , Economist

An elegant defence of talent.

—— The Week

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