Based on computer analysis of price quotes from the eighteenth-century financial press, this work establishes the existence of a sophisticated and smoothly functioning system of financial markets in the mercantile states of northwestern Europe throughout the 1700s.

1. Historical background for the rise of financial capitalism: commercial revolution, rise of nation states, and capital markets; 2. The development of an information network and the international capital markets of London and Amsterdam; 3. The early capital markets of London and Amsterdam; 4. The Banque Royale and the South Sea Company: how the bubbles began; 4. Appendix: were the Mississippi and south sea bubbles rational? 5. The Bank of England and the South Sea Company: how the bubbles ended; 6. The English and Dutch East India Companies: how the west was won; 7. The integration of the English and Dutch capital markets in peace and war; 8. The English and Dutch capital markets in panics; 9. The capital markets during revolutions, war and peace; 10. A tale of two revolutions: international capital flows 1792–1819; 11. The London and Amsterdam stock markets, 1800–1825.