In this history of payment cards, David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee provide an amazingly lucid account of a couple of unusual business models: the "two-sided platform," which in the use of payment cards means walking a tightrope between the interests of merchants and consumers; and the "co-opetitive," in which the bank members of MasterCard and Visa cooperate in developing industry practices while competing for business. The authors, who are both former Visa consultants, sound like your favorite college professors - up to date and extremely sophisticated, yet friendly and anecdotal (at one point, they describe a Shell gas station near MIT to make a point about competition among cards).

They typically begin chapters with easily understood notions from which they methodically build complex structures of ideas and information. Another virtue of the book is its concreteness - although that occasionally devolves into repetitiveness - starting with an explanation involving electronic signals and following the paper path of what happens when you hand your credit, debit or charge card to a cashier. The authors even consider the design and manufacture of the cards themselves. We recommend this book as essential reading for those in the banking or payment card industries; and it's not a bad idea for card users to read it - which these days means you...and just about everyone else.