The Forgotten Financiers of the Louisiana Purchase: European Bankers, the US, and the Rise of International Finance

Recommended by Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee Professor of Economics; Lee and Ezpeleta Professorship of Arts & Sciences

Lots of intrigue, fascinating finance — should be a PBS special. We think of a land purchase of that scale as a diplomatic issue, but the United States had to pay for it. How did they do it? Through the Barings, a banking family that, for a while, was more powerful than the Rothschilds.