ABSTRACT

In times in which online databases, news channels with live quotations from international stock exchanges and, of course, Google, are literally at the fingertips of practically everybody in the Western World, we are used to having any information at our immediate disposal. Due to the overwhelming quantity of facts and figures, today selection is the key to a successful information management. In the nineteenth century, however, the sheer availability of information stood in the foreground, and the circle of people who had access to information from beyond their immediate locality was very small. Apart from governments, rulers and merchants, it included in particular bankers. These depended, especially if they operated internationally, on a precise knowledge of economic and political developments as a vital precondition for doing business.