The Secret History of the South Sea Bubble: The World's First Great Financial Scandal [Hardcover]

Malcolm Balen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2003

The early years of the eighteenth-century produced two great monuments: one, Christopher Wren’s new cathedral of St Paul’s, an enduring testament to principled craft and masterful construction. The other an empty fraud of such magnitude that its collapse threatened to overturn monarchies and governments. Its failure delayed the introduction of modern market economies by two generations. Yet the full scale of this monumental deceit was quietly covered up and hidden, its enduring legacy a poorly understood colloquialism: the South Sea Bubble. It was all planned by one ambitious promoter, who had decided to launch ‘a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is’. This eighteenth-century mission statement has now acquired an almost uncanny resonance: these words could aptly have been applied to the bursting of the Internet bubble and the collapse of Enron. With the financial scandals that have beset global companies recently, such as Rank Xerox and Worldcom, this tale is all the more relevant today. Balen reveals the full story of corruption and scandal that attended the birth of the first shareholder economy, and with it uncovers a parable for our times.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Brilliant.” (John Snow )

“Bristles with contemporary resonance...Balen has a felicitous turn of phrase and the pace never flags.” (Financial Times )

“Balen reminds us that the murky tale of the first bubble stands as a cautionary tale for our time.” (Lisa Jardine, London Times )

“Balen displays both understanding and incredulity in his account of the infamous 18th century trading scandal…a remarkable story.” (Kirkus Reviews )

“A great ripping yarn.” (Chicago Tribune )

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (April 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007161778
• ISBN-13: 978-0007161775
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,542,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining account, January 18, 2004

By 

Paul Donovan (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Secret History of the South Sea Bubble: The World's First Great Financial Scandal (Hardcover)

Balen's account of the "South Sea Bubble" is an entertaining account rather than an exhaustive historical examination of the events surrounding the South Sea Companies rise and fall in the early 18th century. This is not to say that the book lacks historical analysis and insight - but it does not qualify for the sobriquet of a "learned" text.

After a few opening pages of purple prose (through which the reader should plough through, for there is better to come) Balen sets out to paint the circumstances surrounding the "South Sea Bubble". He composes a good picture of the fevered speculation of the period, and in particular is very strong in drawing the parallels to the French experiment with paper money under Law. The view of England being drawn into a speculative frenzy in part because of the need to beat France in commerce is a neat interpretation - and Balen's researches amongst the diplomatic archives bolster the view that the bubble grew out of competition with France.

A reader familiar with analysis of the period will come across the usual clichés - the company formed for "an undertaking of Great Advantage but no-one to know what it is" makes its obligatory appearance, for instance. Alongside these crowd-pleasers, Balen also offers some interesting details of the rise of the company, and the politics surrounding it. In so short a volume, the background setting is necessarily fairly cursory. Nevertheless, the political intrigue (with Walpole cast as the Machiavelli of his day) is well written.

Overall, this text serves as an excellent, entertaining introduction to the bubble. It provides some nice analysis of the bubble in an international context. Heading each chapter is a quote from an apposite article on the internet bubble - but without further elaboration - which struck me as a nice if none too subtle commentary on the ability of human nature to forget bitter experience in the face of wanton greed. For a really serious historian of the period, there is little to be gained from this work, perhaps - but for a generalist, it serves its purpose admirably and gives an nice overview of the phenomena.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read, January 17, 2012

By 

John Bowyer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Secret History of the South Sea Bubble: The World's First Great Financial Scandal (Hardcover)

This should be compulsory reading for all students and politicians.

It explains how we are in the mess we are in right now and the probable outcome. This was Victoria, Australia in the 1980's and what's quaintly called the GFC now.

The real problem is we are only told the truth eventually and there is seldom any punishment meted out for all the misdeeds.

5.0 out of 5 stars The first 'scheme' for investors, November 30, 2011

By 

John the Reader "John" (Orlando, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Secret History of the South Sea Bubble: The World's First Great Financial Scandal (Hardcover)

This is an eminently readable book telling the story of the first of the Stock Market frauds, manipulation and subsequent crash in the clear prose of a thoroughly professional communicator. The author has worked in all media and is a News Head with the BBC (British Broadcasting Service) of Great Britain.
Following a scenario now ruefully and regrettably so familiar to those of us who survived the dot.com and Second Great Recession crashes, this history of the 1710-20 rip-off by Banks, Bonders and bounders is all too readily understood. The `Bubble' was what we have been painfully taught to call a "trading margin', the 'South Sea' was a non-existing market "demand" and the trading was as free and unregulated as a Ponzi scheme.
Balen's earlier historical book was on Waterloo ... and investors in this `opportunity' met theirs.
Charles Dickens had words of wisdom for us on short-sales, stocks, lottery, bond and fraud, if we had only seen them - "Sufficient answer to all; Shares. O mighty Shares!... 'Relieve us of our money, scatter it for us, buy us and sell us, ruin us, only we beseech ye take rank among the powers of the earth, and fatten on us'!"