Following an unprecedented economic boom fed by foreign investment, the Russian Revolution triggered the worst sovereign default in history. Bankers and Bolsheviks tells the dramatic story of this boom and bust, chronicling the forgotten experiences of leading financiers of the age. Shedding critical new light on the decision making of the powerful personalities who acted as the gatekeepers of international finance, Hassan Malik narrates how they channeled foreign capital into Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While economists have long relied on quantitative analysis to grapple with questions relating to the drivers of cross-border capital flows, Malik adopts a historical approach, drawing on banking and government archives in four countries. The book provides rare insights into the thinking of influential figures in world finance as they sought to navigate one of the most challenging and lucrative markets of the first modern age of globalization. Bankers and Bolsheviks reveals how a complex web of factors–from government interventions to competitive dynamics and cultural influences–drove a large inflow of capital during this tumultuous period in world history. This gripping book demonstrates how the realms of finance and politics–of bankers and Bolsheviks–grew increasingly intertwined, and how investing in Russia became a political act with unforeseen repercussions.

在外国投资推动了前所未有的经济繁荣之后，俄罗斯革命引发了历史上最严重的主权违约。银行家和布尔什维克讲述了这个繁荣和萧条的戏剧性故事，记录了那个时代主要金融家被遗忘的经历。哈桑·马利克（Hassan Malik）讲述了19世纪末和20世纪初，他们是如何将外国资本引入俄罗斯的，为那些充当国际金融守门人的权势人物的决策提供了批判性的新视角。虽然经济学家长期以来一直依赖定量分析来解决与跨境资本流动驱动因素有关的问题，但马利克采用了历史方法，借鉴了四个国家的银行和政府档案。这本书为世界金融界有影响力的人物提供了难得的见解，因为他们试图在第一个现代全球化时代最具挑战性和最有利可图的市场之一航行。银行家和布尔什维克揭示了一个复杂的因素网络——从政府干预到竞争动态和文化影响——是如何在世界历史上这个动荡时期推动大量资本流入的。这本扣人心弦的书展示了金融和政治领域——银行家和布尔什维克——是如何日益交织在一起的，以及在俄罗斯的投资是如何成为一种具有不可预见影响的政治行为的。