A lively and original history of stock market speculation from the 17th cent. to 1998. Traces the origins of the speculative spirit back to ancient Rome and chronicles its revival in the modern world: from the tulip scandal of 1630s Holland, to "stockjobbing" in London's Exchange Alley, to the infamous South Sea Bubble of 1720. Here are brokers underwriting risks such as highway robbery; lottery tickets circulating as money; wise and unwise investors such as Benjamin Disraeli and Ivan Boesky. From the Gilded Age to the Roaring 20s, from the 19th-cent. railway mania to the crash of 1929, and through to Day Traders, this book tells a fascinating story of human dreams and folly through the ages.