The recent financial and banking crisis did reveal the discrepancy between internal management rules and the demands for stability within the divisions of corporate and investment banking by universal banks or within pure investment banks. Their mastership of risks did not balance the variety and breadth of operations, at the expense of transparent and well-structured balance sheets.

The book intends fuel comparisons between historical national case studies and present evolution of investment banking. It will foster arguments about the management of risks, about the portfolio of skills of investment bankers, about the role of senior bankers. Two chapters of issues and of present assessments help giving sense to history through the mobilisation of concepts crossing decades till the recent years, so as to favour deeper thinking about the very nature and good practices of investment banking.