In this highly detailed study Jorge Franco Holguín makes a significant contribution to the constantly increasing volume of materials on Colombian economic problems. The focus here is upon a history of banking and financial institutions. In a succinct introductory chapter he provides the historical antecedents of banking until its more formal development in 1923. As a result of periodic political upheaval, civil war, and national disunity, banking and monetary and fiscal policies in nineteenth-century Colombia were chaotic and ephemeral. The most important efforts in the early period came in 1880 when attempts were made toward monetary unification in the country, and when Rafael Núñez established the Banco Nacional in 1881.

The evolution of Colombian financial institutions began in a more serious way under the presidency of Pedro Nel Ospina when his government authorized a study of the country’s fiscal and economic policies by a mission of foreign economic experts. In 1923 a group headed by Edwin Walter Kemmerer arrived in Colombia. The study presented by the Kemmerer mission resulted in a number of recommendations which were, for the most part, incorporated into a banking law for the country. The year also marked the founding of the Banco de la República which was modeled after the Federal Reserve Bank in the United States.

Throughout his discussion the author presents the development of his subject within the framework of the changing economic and social milieu of Colombia. Indeed, the value of his book is that it reports how Colombia, as a representative of a developing nation, managed to handle banking problems with a fair degree of sophistication. It is a lesson which other developing nations could well learn and follow. Jorge Franco Holguín also provides a service to those who have tried to make their ways through the labyrinth of credit agencies and development banks. To name only a few, the author discusses the functions and purposes of the Fondo Nacional del Café, the Caja de Crédito Agrario, the Instituto de Crédito Territorial, the Banco Ganadero, and the Banco Cafetero.

The value of the volume is enhanced by its excellent organization and by the skillful use of statistical data and charts. The book’s major defect is in the excessive amount of detail which becomes burdensome to the reader. For example, it seems unnecessary to know that the Caja de Crédito Agrario began its operations “in a small office on the second floor of the Pedro A. López Building” (p. 82) in Bogotá.