The Crédit Lyonnais (C.L.) suffered serious difficulties in the 1990s, so that The Economist renamed it Discredit Lyonnais. However, c.1900, it had been the biggest bank in the world, and in 1981 it came second, based on deposits, behind the Bank of America. This 1,020-page volume is thus not out of proportion with the C.L. role in the banking world. Moreover, the C.L. has preserved rich records and has been very liberal in opening them to historians; eventually, in 1991, it established a department of historical archives. As a consequence, starting with the late Jean Bouvier and his pioneer work (Le Credit Lyonnais de 1863 à 1882. Paris: SEVPEN, 1961), many scholars have recently worked on the history of the C.L., which has indeed been the most studied among French banks.

The editors of this book stress that it is neither a history of the bank (two adequate works are available), nor the product of a collective project about one single theme; they have wanted to gather studies by persons—both well-known historians and young scholars—who have recently worked in the C.L. archives and in other primary sources, and who have something new to say about the bank history. Such a collection might have been a hodgepodge of disjointed papers, but the 41 essays are arranged in an orderly and rational manner, around five major centers of interest, and each of the five parts starts with a synthetic survey by one of the editors. One must add that some of the papers are interviews with six former top executives of the bank and two union leaders. The editors admit that those testimonies are somewhat biased; they are nonetheless interesting, for instance, the long interview (over 60 pages) with Jean Deflassieux, who was president from 1982 to 1986. Moreover, this book covers a longer period than most histories of French banks; still, the editors frankly state that they have thought it impossible to deal with the disasters which the C.L. met with in recent years, inasmuch as this crisis is still sub judice.

Part 1 of the book deals with the bank as a business firm, i.e., with its organization, management, and personnel (the first female permanent employee was recruited in 1884). It includes a good biography of Henri Germain, the bank's founder and first president; and an outstanding paper on the C.L. department of financial studies (established as early as 1871), in which Marc Flandreau challenges current views on the pre-1914 gold standard ethos. Part 2 is devoted to the role of the C.L. in the financing of the French economy; the problem is disaggregated, by considering it from the point of view of different industrial branches (railroads, automobile, aircraft, and electricity). It emerges that the bank's strategy, for most of its history, was close to the English model, but that, both in its early and in its recent years, it rather followed the German model of mixed banking. Anyhow, criticism of the C.L. as Althusian which was popular in an earlier generation of Marxism-influenced writers, is dismissed by Michel Lescure (pp. 364–66).

Part 3 is of special interest: the C.L. as a major international bank. Very early, it opened branches abroad (London, 1870) and it became involved in financing international trade and investment. The activities of the C.L. in London, in Geneva, in Spain and Portugal, in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt, and in Norway, are analyzed by experts such as Youssef Cassis and Samir Saul. With the exception of London, the heart of the world financial system, where the C.L. had to be present (despite the hostility of the City establishment), the bank did not operate in the most advanced countries (a branch was opened in New York in 1879 and closed in 1881). Those foreign activities were, of course, dependent upon the international environment, including political disturbances: the Egyptian branches, which had long been important, had to close in 1956; the bank then turned towards Brazil and other Latin American countries. Eric Bussière has written on C.L.'s European strategy from the 1950s to the 1970s.

The C.L. in its environment is the theme of Part 4; it deals with relations and competition between the C.L. and other major French and European banks. Youssef Cassis concludes (p. 723) that there was no victor in the war of the systems, i.e., between mixed and deposit banking. Relations with the state and public opinion on the C.L. (some newspapers had built up a “black legend” about it) are also considered.

Finally, Part 5 deals with short-term problems, i.e., the difficulties the C.L. encountered because of economic crises and world wars. It includes a long, fascinating, and remarkably objective paper by Alain Plessis and Philippe Verheyde about the C.L. under German occupation. The bank management showed neither sympathy for the Nazis nor interest in collaboration; but it operated under heavy constraints and its overwhelming purpose was the bank's survival; so it enforced, some times to the letter—though with no zeal—German and Vichy orders, especially as regards its Jewish customers. One consequence of World War II for the C.L. was its nationalization; one can regret that this upheaval and its effects —which Plessis describes as rather negative (pp. 848–49)—have not been given more space.

In their foreword, the editors recognized that the depth of analysis was not uniform throughout the 41 chapters (p. 8). However, a large majority of them are of high quality, and the mass of new data and ideas which this book contains is remarkable. Moreover, it displays an interesting change in French banking history, from a macro to a micro (and deideologized) approach. This has enabled Plessis to define the “cultural identity” of the C.L., thanks to which it overcame crises and wars for 140 years. It had been inclined towards entente rather than competition, it was eager to collect information, its strategy was rather cautious. When it deviated from this culture, which Plessis sees as representative of the French banking system and as rather efficient, it courted disaster.