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Rating: 
Summary: An entertaining account
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent History of the First Great Stock Market Scandal
Review: The Secret History of the South Seas Bubble, written by Malcolm Balen, a television journalist who has worked for the BBC and ITV, recounts the first great stock market scandal involving a purely financial company known as the South Seas Company which occurred around the year 1720 along with the Mississippi Bubble that occurred in France at about the same time. Though a number of books have been written about the Bubble, this one is written as a narrative which revolves around three different personalities: John Law, John Blunt, and Robert Walpole. Balen uses these three and other people who lived through the time of the Bubble to give the reader an idea of what the atmosphere of those heady times were like. One quickly sees many parallels to the tech bubbles of out own time, with its grand promises of easy wealth before reality rudely crashes the party. The Secret History is an excellent primer for those readers that have never read about the South Seas Bubble before and is very enjoyable reading even for those who are well acquainted with the facts. After reading this book, you may never see scandals like Enron, Worldcom, and others in quite the same light again.
Rating: 
Summary: Painful and meandering
Review: This book just moves slowly from one topic to another with no clear reason of where its going. I found it shallow on facts for the length of the book. Its like a magazine article was teased and pulled into a book.
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