New York, NY, Estados Unidos : Association Press, c1975.

288 p. ; 21 cm.

The promise. -- 1. Gold out of paper. -- 2. A bankrupt kingdom. -- 3. With a certain sword. -- 4. The regent. -- The bank. -- 5. The first French bank. -- 6. Billets de Monnaie. -- 7. No life on the Mississippi. -- 8. Refuge in the Palais Royal. -- The system. -- 9. Diversifying the Western Company. -- 10. No innocent pleasures. -- 11. And now the Indies. -- 12. Rue Quincampoix. -- 13. O more than man!. -- 14. Manon Lescaut. -- 15. A portfolio is worth a Mass. -- The crash. -- 16. Winter of discontent. -- 17. Crime in the streets. -- 18. Inflating the bubble. -- 19. Fatal edict. -- 20. La peste. -- The end. -- 21. A splintered carriage. -- 22. Liquidating the system. -- 23. In exile once more. -- 24. The Beau's return. -- 25. Death in Venice. -- Epilogue. --

Tomado de la solapa: "As a young Scottish financier, John Law was brilliant, unusually handsome, and daring. For killing his man in a duel over a woman he was forced to flee to Amsterdam where he became a close student of Dutch trade and banking practices, then the most advanced in the world. Returning to the British Isles in 1700, by special arrangement with the Crown, he failed in his attempt to convince the British Parliament of the need for a national bank and in frustration departed for France. In Paris he was soon known to many of the foremost figures of French finance, and with the economy critically shaky he was able to persuade Philippe II, duc d' Orleans, Regent for the child king Louis XV, to back his extraordinary scheme for issuing unsecured paper money. Under it anyone could get rich quick, including Law and the Regent, who did. Law founded his own royal bank and soon controlled all of the France's improving finances. To back up the resulting orgy of uncurbed speculation, he advertised the fabled riches to be found in the French colonies of the Mississippi Valley, particularly Louisiana, described as a land filled with mountains of gold and silver, and precious gems to be picked up from the river shores. In 1720 the Mississippi Bubble burst, running thousands of investors. Law's whole monetary system quickly collapsed and he fled to Venice where, after supporting himself ably for nine years with his mathematical knowledge of gambling, he died unattended and unmourned. This biography of the father of paper currency portrays the life of a financial genius which was a fantastic as his successes, along with the defects in his system which brought about his downfall." --

0809619040

Incluye referencias bibliográficas (Pp. 279-282) e índice.