David Kynaston was born in Aldershot in 1951. After graduating from New College Oxford, he studied at the London School of Economics. A professional historian, in addition to the four-volume The City of London, his works include King Labour: A History of the British Working Class, 1850-1914, histories of the Financial Times and the stockbrokers Cazenove & co., and the first two volumes in a planned history of Britain between 1945 and 1979, Austerity Britain, 1945-51 and Family Britain, 1951-57.David Milner, editor of this volume, was born in 1971. After postgraduate work at university he became an editor for Secker & Warburg at Random House. He now works as a freelance editor for leading publishers, and lives in the Cotswolds with his wife and two children.

"Wonderful... This is real history; living history" Sunday Times "Economic history at its most glittering" The Times "A work of breathtaking scope and accomplishment" Independent "Magisterial" Observer "Everyone should read David Kynaston's riveting history of the City: a subject too important to be left to the bankers" John Lanchester