Critics of how central banks manage financial crises would do well to consider how countries addressed such crises before the creation of official monetary institutions. In many cases, they relied on the intervention of prominent and powerful private bankers such as Nathan Rothschild in the United Kingdom and J. P. Morgan in the United States. Moen and Rodgers recount how Morgan helped resolve the recurring crises besetting the U.S. financial system before the Federal Reserve System was founded,