John Law: Money to Burn

This is the story of John Law, a pied piper who led rich and poor alike across the barriers of reason and plunged them into disaster. Was he a genius, wizard or charlatan? Was France victimized by a gigantic fraud perpetrated by a scheming Scotsman?

John Law was the Scotsman who invented the concept of paper money and banking and became Comptroller of France. Though his principles were solid, the corruption of the French court led to the disaster known as The Mississippi Bubble. A dashing he...