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We often take our economic and larger social system in the West as something given or that can be accepted without much questioning with regards to its origin or how it came about. One area that is so vital for the modern world is banking, including investment, we often associated with buying and selling of stocks and securities, and loans.<ref> For a recent history of investment banking, see: Bonin, Hubert, and Carlo Brambilla, eds. 2014. ''Investment Banking History: National and Comparative Issues (19th-21st Centuries)''. Euroclio. Studies and Documents, no. 78. Bruxelles: P.I.E. Peter Lang.</ref> However, this system developed over thousands of years and the first traces of investing in trade, what effectively were family-run business, and forms of investment banking appear in the ancient Near East.