Defence date: 15 November 2016 ; Examining Board: Professor Youssef Cassis, EUI/Supervisor; Professor Regina Grafe, EUI/ Second Reader; Professor Lynn Hunt, UCLA; Professor Allan Potofsky, Paris VII Diderot ; This work aims to explore the interactions between finance and politics in the ‘Age of Revolution’. The analysis of the financial world concerns bankers and merchants active in the cities of Amsterdam, London and Paris. In particular, the focus is on three aspects: the social status, the economic power and the political influence of bankers during a period of high uncertainty. Through a study of press debates emerges the different situation of bankers in England and France: whereas in England bankers intervened actively in public debate and even offered their expertise at the service of the government, in France, suspicion and distrust marked the general attitude towards the world of banking and trading. During the period of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Empire, bankers faced growing uncertainty and higher risks in running their business. Notwithstanding these unfavourable conditions, bankers like Francis Baring and Henry Hope found a safe refuge in investing in the American securities market. In England, the 1797 credit crisis led some important banks like Charles Hoare & Co. and Coutts & Co. to restrain lending to their most important and eminent clients. In 1802, the short interlude between wars offered opportunities to launch risky business, such as diamond acquisitions, as Baring tried to acquire in Paris. The outbreak of new hostilities did not prevent Dutch bankers from maintaining their capital invested in French loans. The growing financial needs of states did not always bring bankers to have an upper hand with governments. In England, Thomas Coutts struggled to see his closest friends and relatives appointed to public offices. In France, the precarious autonomy of the Banque de France did not overcome the 1805 crisis that led Napoleon to intervene and change the charter ...