OT I highly recommend Niall Ferguson's two-volume history of the Rothschild banking dynasty (Ferguson wrote the NYT article cited by you). I had no idea that so little has been invented in the last 200 years in the financial operations. <g> Besides, it's a fascinating political, military, social and finanacial history of Europe during the past two centuries.
M_e
P.S. Both massive (>500 pages) volumes can be bought (used) on AMZN for $10...