Anthony D. Smith

This book, first published in 1992, measures and explains the performance of major competitor countries in international financial services. Covering the markets for foreign exchange, mergers and acquisition advice, syndicated loans, Eurobonds, international equities, Eurocommercial paper, and Euro paper notes, the author assesses performance on the basis of the shares of the major institutional players in the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Explanations for the contrasts in national performance are sought through interviews with senior officials of financial institutions operating in selected markets. The role and importance of a number of explanatory factors are then examined, including the structure of national banking sectors, capital inputs, technology, regulation, and domestic economic conditions. The book concludes by asking how the banking sectors of different countries are likely to fare as international trade in financial services is liberalised.

This book is an excellent, comprehensive account of the ways in which nations and nationhood have evolved over time. Successful in hardback, it is now available in paperback for a student audience.

Since the Second World War, the world has witnessed a remarkable efflorescence of ethnic feeling and nationalist aspirations. Among Bretons, Basques, Scots, Welsh, Flemish, Quebecois, Catalans, Kurds, Ibo, Somali, and a host of other communities, ethnic movements demanding much greater autonomy, or even independence, have sprung up. Originally published in 1981, this book explores the ethnic separatisms and 'neo-nationalisms' that, at the time, threatened to undermine the fragile stability of the world order and to annul liberal and cosmopolitan dreams of world government and a universal scientific culture. What were the underlying causes of this ethnic revival? Why did it assume worldwide proportions? Anthony D. Smith claims that to uncover the cultural root and mental spring of the ethnic renaissance we must look to the development of a sense of history that first arose in eighteenth-century Europe.