Banking

Scott, William Amasa, 1862-1944Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 221K words
Chapters: 23

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Banking by William Amasa ScottAuthor: Scott, William Amasa, 1862-1944,Language: English, Class: HG: Social sciences: Finance, Release Date: Apr 17, 2010

Editor's review

This is an early general treatise on banking by the American economist William Amasa Scott, made available as a free ebook by Project Gutenberg. Its value lies not in offering a guide to current banking practice but in presenting early twentieth-century English-language scholarship's foundational discussion of banking systems, credit, and the function of financial intermediation, allowing readers to observe the analytical frameworks and questions that predate modern finance. The style is academic, with clear definitions of concepts, making it suitable as supporting material for the history of finance and the history of monetary and banking thought. It is typically read as course extension reading, background for papers, or independent reading by those interested in older economic texts. Note that the book does not cover contemporary regulatory rules, digital finance, or global market cases; readers should treat it as a historical document rather than a practical manual, and reading it alongside a modern textbook will better reveal how ideas have evolved.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students and researchers in financial history and the history of monetary and banking thought
Economics readers seeking to understand the analytical framework of early banking scholarship
Independent readers interested in public-domain English-language economics texts
Upper-level undergraduates preparing background material for course papers

Not a good fit for

Practitioners seeking guidance on contemporary banking practice and regulation
Beginners with limited English reading ability who need a Chinese translation
General readers who only want a quick overview of modern financial products

Reading tips

Read the table of contents and introduction first to identify the author's scope, then decide which chapters to read closely.
Keep a modern monetary and banking textbook at hand and read by topic, noting conceptual differences.
Take bilingual notes on key terms for citation and later reference.
You may read only the chapters on credit and the functions of banks, skipping long institutional descriptions.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers with no background in banking to study on their own?

Not really. It is an early academic treatise lacking contemporary cases and explanations of terminology, so beginners may easily lose the thread. It is better to read an introductory modern monetary and banking textbook first, then use this book as historical comparison; understanding will be smoother.

What should readers keep in mind when reading the ebook?

The Gutenberg edition is a public-domain English ebook, mainly plain text, and may lack charts and detailed notes. Use reading software that supports dictionary lookup and note-taking; verify older expressions before citing them, and avoid mistaking historical usage for contemporary definitions.

Do the book's views still have reference value today?

They have value as a historical document, helping readers understand the origins and evolution of the questions asked in banking scholarship; but specific institutional descriptions and conclusions are limited by their era and should not be directly applied to contemporary financial analysis. Read for its way of posing questions rather than copying its conclusions.

Comments

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About the author

Scott, William Amasa, 1862-1944 Author · American · 1862–1944

William Amasa Scott (1862–1944) was an American economist who taught for many years at the University of Wisconsin, focusing on money, finance, and business history. His representative work, Banking, deals with banking institutions and financial operations and belongs to the professional literature of money and banking. Public information about his life is limited; apart from his teaching career and research interests, details of his early education, specific posts, and academic activities are difficult to verify. Judging from the surviving work, his writing is primarily institutional and practical in approach, aimed at readers interested in how the financial system operates, and it emphasizes factual exposition rather than theoretical argument. Banking is the only work by him held in this collection and can serve as a reference for understanding American banking and monetary issues in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.