It was called the South Sea Bubble, and it was one of the most precarious financial crises in history. It was also the birth of modern finance. MIT Professor Thomas Levenson unfurls this sweeping tale of one of the greatest financial frauds in history in his new book Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich. The book explores the connection between the revolutionary advances in science, unveiled in quick succession in the early 18thcentury, with the invention of financial capitalism.
In the early 1700s, England was running …
