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Money For Nothing - The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism (Paperback)
Loot Price: R271
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Money For Nothing - The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism (Paperback)
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List price R327
Loot Price R271
Discovery Miles 2 710
You Save R56 (17%)
Expected to ship within 9 - 15 working days
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A Financial Times Economics Book of the Year A brilliant narrative
of early capitalism's most famous scandal, a speculative frenzy
that nearly bankrupted the British state during the hot summer of
1720 - and paradoxically led to the birth of modern finance. The
South Sea Company was formed to trade with Asian and Latin American
countries. But it had almost no ships and did precious little
trade. Instead it got into financial fraud on a massive scale,
taking over the government's debt and promising to pay the state
out of the money received from the shares it sold. And how they
sold. In the summer of 1720 the share price rocketed and everyone
was making money. Until the carousel stopped, and thousands lost
their shirts. Isaac Newton, Alexander Pope and others lost heavily.
Thomas Levenson's superb account of the South Sea Bubble is not
just the story of a huge scam, but is also the story of the birth
of modern financial capitalism: the idea that you can invest in
future prosperity and that governments can borrow money to make
things happen, like funding the rise of British naval and
mercantile power. These dreamers and fraudsters may have bankrupted
Britain, but they made the world rich. Praise for Money For
Nothing: 'A scholar who makes complicated and subtle matters not
just accessible but fun. Utterly relevant to the 2008 financial
crisis and 2020 pandemic' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE 'Thoroughly
researched and vibrantly written, Money For Nothing captures those
heady, heartbreaking times, which still hold lessons for today'
DAVID KAISER 'A gripping story of scientists and swindlers, all too
pertinent to our modern world' JAMES GLEICK 'It's easy to look back
and think of the South Sea bubblers, like the tulip-mad Dutch of
the 1630s, as financially naive - until you remember how many
people jumped in on various other more recent crazes (from Beanie
Babies to Pets.com and Bitcoin). This is not a new tale, but
Levenson tells it with a light touch' SPECTATOR
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