Merrill Lynch: The Cost Could Be Fatal: My War Against Wall Street's Giant Book

This little book, published in 1871, describes the functioning of the first great capital market at the time when money first began to flow quickly and easily across distances and borders to wherever it would be most profitable to those who controlled it. (I suspect the telegraph played a role in this transformation.) Bagehot confined himself to describing the workings of the actual money market, intentionally keeping clear of economic theory. The fact he named the book after the specific street where the activities took place is indicative. Although conditions have changed greatly since he wrote, the book presents a good introduction to the mechanisms of capital.
The latter part of the book points out weaknesses in the then current workings of the money market that resulted from London having become an international centre for capital and it proposes methods of safe guarding against a panic. I think it demonstrates his astuteness that he was arguing this in 1871 two years before "The Panic of 1873" that triggered the "Long Depression", the first global depression, lasting twenty years.
He was one of those uncommon writers who are able to express complexity clearly. I wish I could find somebody writing about money today with his skill as a writer, his knowledge (before becoming a journalist he had worked as a banker) and his scrupulous avoidance of economic dogma.