Overview

The book is an economic history of the South Sea Bubble. It combines economic theory and quantitative analysis with historical evidence in order to provide a rounded account. It brings together scholarship from a variety of different fields to update the existing historical work on the Bubble. Up until now, economic history research has not been integrated into mainstream histories of 1720. Technical work on share prices and ledgers has been inaccessible to a wider audience. As well as providing new evidence against the gambling mania argument, the book also interprets the existing economic history scholarship for non-specialists.