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For nearly three centuries the spectacular rise and fall of the South Sea Company has gripped the public imagination as the most graphic warning to investors of the dangers of unbridled speculation. Yet history repeats itself and the same elemental forces that drove up the price of South Sea shares to dizzying heights in 1720 have in recent years produced the global crash of 1987, the Japanese stock market bubble of the 1980s/90s, and the international dot.com boom of the 1990s. The First Crash throws light on the current debate about investor rationality by re-examining the story of the South Sea Bubble from the standpoint of investors and commentators during and preceding the fateful Bubble year. In absorbing prose, Richard Dale describes the trading techniques of London's Exchange Alley (which included 'modern' transactions such as derivatives) and uses new data, as well as the hitherto neglected writings of a brilliant contemporary financial analyst, to show how investors lost their bearings during the Bubble period in much the same way as during the dot.com boom. The events of 1720, as presented here, offer insights into the nature of financial markets that, being independent of place and time, deserve to be considered by today's investors everywhere. This book is therefore aimed at all those with an interest in the behavior of stock markets.

For 400 years, the true story behind the fall of Sir Walter Ralegh, his conviction for high treason and his eventual beheading has been shrouded in mystery. Was he deliberately set up by the brilliant but untrustworthy Sir Robert Cecil? Why did his friend Lord Cobham denounce him at his trial? And how could this towering figure of the Elizabethan age be accused of conspiring with his old enemy Spain to overthrow the king and his government? This book draws on the author's legal background to unravel the extraordinary plots and intrigues that marked the last weeks of Elizabeth's reign and the first months of James's succession. In the bitter struggle for position, wealth, and royal favor, only the most ruthless and devious could hope to win, and it was the dwarfish, hunch-backed Cecil who eventually prevailed over the swashbuckling Ralegh. But in the eyes of posterity, who was the real victor?

The author of Steel tells the story of strikes and violent unrest amid the mines and mills of twentieth-century Pennsylvania and Ohio—includes photos. As the twentieth century dawned on western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, the region’s steel industry faced a struggle for unionism. The industry was plagued by disasters that killed and maimed countless workers, many of them impoverished immigrants from Ireland, Hungary, and other nations—in 1906 alone, more than four hundred workers died in steel plant accidents. In response, unionists like Philip Murray, John L. Lewis, Samuel Gompers, and Gus Hall began to battle for fair wages, hours, and working conditions. Managers like Judge Elbert Gary and Tom Girdler opposed their every move. Tensions from issues of immigration, class, skill, and race erupted throughout the industry. The tribulations led to widespread steel strikes directed by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, and a war that killed scores and injured thousands. In this book, industrial relations expert Dale Richard Perelman charts the struggle and decline of the nation’s most prominent regional steel industry.

The decolonization of Namibia was delayed from 1966 to 1989--the period of the war of independence--pitting the Namibian nationalists against the South African minority-ruled regime. This book describes the diplomatic, economic and military campaigns of the Namibian and South African belligerents and draws a comparison with several other decolonization wars. Using data from parliamentary debates, the aftermath is examined of the Namibian war and the newly independent nation. The book provides a basis for further investigation of the decolonization process.

A long-term specialist on Southern African affairs explores the history of conflict and cooperation—showing how a landlocked small state reduced its dependency upon its neighbors in a strategically important part of Southern Africa. Drawing upon first-hand information and primary sources—interviews, personal letters, newspaper reports, archival materials, among others—this analysis of low-high politics from colonial days and independence to the present defines how political leaders and citizenry made Bostwana one of the few stable democracies in Africa—one that has improved its economy and international standing over the last quarter century. Students, scholars, and policymakers concerned with world politics, international political economy, and African studies will find this study important for understanding the foreign policy options and policies of small and weak states today in Africa and in the international arena.

A lively portrait of the “Steel City” and its millionaires and workers during the late nineteenth century. Steel portrays the growth of iron and steel in smoke-filled Pittsburgh during America’s industrial age, and what it meant for the people who lived there. This history shares the fast-paced saga of millionaire barons Andrew Carnegie, Ben Franklin Jones, Henry Clay Frick, Henry Phipps, and Charles Schwab, who often plotted and schemed against each other—as well as the story of the underpaid and undervalued immigrant workforce whose desire to unionize united their bosses against them. Here, author Dale Richard Perelman recounts this dramatic struggle and the bloody battles it spawned throughout Western Pennsylvania’s plants, mines, and railroad yards.

Considers the new global banking and financial systems which have become the subject of an unprecedented experiment involving new and unquantifiable risks. Based on up to the minute research, Dale offers a warning about structural faults at the heart of banking systems worldwide.

Early on 21 February 1814, an army officer revealed that the French had been defeated and Napoleon killed. When the London Stock Exchange opened at 10.00 am, the City was full of rumours of an allied victory. This work offers a tale of one of the earliest stock market scams; a tale of greed, deceit and the public humiliation of Lord Cochrane.