Timing is important for determining the effectiveness of any action or argument, and now is probably not the best time to make an argument in favor of the South Sea Company, infamously associated with the first financial bubble and bust of modern capitalism. But, after years of plowing through the contemporary records of the company and studying the intricacies of modern finance, Helen Paul provides a thought-provoking justification for the actions of the directors of the South Sea Company and possible explanations for the ultimate collapse of the scheme. The bubble period lasted only from February to October 1720, while the company itself was chartered in 1710 and only wound up in 1854. (Although its trading activities ceased in 1763, it continued to manage a large part of the British national debt into Victoria’s reign.) The heart of the South Sea Company’s scheme to refinance the bulk of the British government’s long-term debt, which still burdened the limited tax revenues of the state in 1720, was to exchange outstanding government debt (in the form of difficult-to-trade annuities) for more liquid shares in the expanded capital stock of the company. But the attractiveness of the scheme to investors lay in the possibilities of profitable long-distance trade with the Spanish empire and exploiting the whaling grounds of the Pacific Ocean. If these possibilities had panned out, the value of shares in the expanded company would have certainly increased, although not to the extent that occurred at the height of the bubble.

Paul spends some time to show that the company did pursue its monopoly of the slave trade with Spanish America vigorously until its asiento expired amid growing conflicts with Spain, which culminated in the War of the Austrian Succession. With the slave trade with Spain closed to it, the company turned its attention to whaling, which actually had been its original intent. Competition from New England whalers was already too strong for the company to overcome, however, even after the subsidies it started receiving in 1732. As far as the company’s plans to refinance government debt, which were attacked most strongly at the time by an MP, Archibald Hutcheson, Paul shows that Hutcheson was fundamentally misguided as the bulk of his writings embodied the most xenophobic traits of the landed gentry. He was part of a general opposition to the South Sea Company that included appeals to anti-Semitism, male chauvinism, and xenophobia extending not only to the French but also to the Irish, Welsh, and Scots. Had his proposals to extinguish the national debt entirely been followed, Britain would have likely followed the historical path of Japan rather than enjoying its later economic success. That Britain enjoyed economic success afterward cannot be doubted, however, despite the collapse in the price of South Sea shares in 1720.

While this slim, overpriced volume raises many good questions about the standard historiography of the South Sea Bubble, Paul does not really go into sufficient detail to overcome the standard narrative, which seems to get more ingrained with every recurring financial crisis, and especially with the global financial crisis of 2007–12. I hope, nevertheless, that she will continue to research along the lines her questions raise and that other scholars will join her efforts.