Unveiling the Global Reach and Evolution of the Modern Stock Market The Equity Culture by B. Mark Smith is a lively and colorful chronicle of the modern stock market's ever-growing role worldwide. Smith's book makes clear that today's stock market is just one component of a much broader "equity culture"—a vibrant, international market encompassing stocks, bonds, mutual funds, joint stock and limited liability corporations, and trading in diverse commodities such as grain, gold, diamonds, and currency. From shipping magnates joining forces in eighteenth-century India to the railroad robber barons of nineteenth-century America and contemporary currency traders like George Soros, The Equity Culture traces the fascinating history of how this global market came to be. Smith highlights two key points: first, that the equity culture has always been international, with globalization being merely its current phase; and second, that the equity culture is often surprisingly self-adjusting, with "manias, panics, and crashes" paving the way for ever greater risk and innovation in the world of finance.