In 1719, the South Sea Company laid out a grand plan to swap citizens' shares of the nation's debt for company stock, removing the burden from the state and making their own directors a fortune in the process. Even the king's ministers took the bait—and everybody made too much money, far too fast. The following crash came suddenly in a rush of scandal, jail, suicide, and ruin. But as Thomas Levenson recounts in this history of the South Sea Bubble, Britain's de facto prime minister, Robert Walpole, helped the kingdom to emerge with the first truly modern, reliable, and stable financial exchange.