This book is a welcome, concise, and informative study of the history of the national debt in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Formally, the national-debt story begins with the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694, but Slater discusses government borrowing before that date. Rich in detail but always clearly and accessibly written, the book focuses on such key issues as the rise and fall of national debt as a proportion of gdp, the redemption structure of the debt, its servicing costs, and the question of when debt should, and should not, be incurred. The book is interspersed with sections that analyze the views of economists about the national debt—David Hume, Adam Smith, James Maitland (eighth earl of Lauderdale), David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and Robert Barro.
The main increases in debt were caused by the financial demands of war. The eighteenth century...