1. Introduction Rodney Evinsson, Tor Jacobson and Daniel Waldenstrom; 2. Central banks: evolution and innovation in historical perspective Michael D. Bordo and Pierre L. Siklos; 3. Sveriges Riksbank: 350 years in the making Klas Fregert; 4. The Bank of England, 1694-2017 C. A. E. Goodhart; 5. The Bank of Spain, 1782–2017. A history Pablo Martín-Aceña; 6. The other way: a narrative history of the Bank of France Vincent Bignon and Marc Flandreau; 7. Four hundred years of central banking in the Netherlands, 1609–2016 Gerarda Westerhuis and Jan Luiten van Zanden; 8. Norges Bank 1816–2016. A history of a small independent central bank Oyvind Eitrheim and Jan Tore Klovland; 9. The Bank of Italy, a short history, 1893–1998 Gianni Toniolo; 10. A history of the Bank of Japan, 1882–2016 Masato Shizume; 11. The two eras of central banking in the United States Barry Eichengreen; 12. The struggle of German central banks to maintain price stability Jakob de Haan; 13. The People's Bank of China: from 1948 to 2016 Franklin Allen, Xian Gu and Jun Qian; 14. The European Central Bank Otmar Issing.