A Fabulous Debt

Stocks get all the glory, but bonds rule the world. A Fabulous Debt is a compelling history of a powerful idea.

JACOB GOLDSTEIN, author of MONEY

Robin Wigglesworth's deft treatment of fear and greed in bonds will entertain and educate you - and just might save your bacon as well.

WILLIAM J. BERNSTEIN, author of A SPLENDID EXCHANGE

A delightful romp through 850 years of western history. And for once, a financial instrument is cast as the hero of the tale.

SEBASTIAN MALLABY, author of THE INFINITY MACHINE

Crucial reading to understand the global economy of the 2020s and how we got here.

DUNCAN WELDON, author of BLOOD & TREASURE

In this rip-roaring book, Robin Wigglesworth takes us from the bonds that funded Hamilton’s vision for America to Britain’s rise as a global power. Told with wit, colour, and insight, A Fabulous Debt is more than a finance book: it’s the story of how the modern world was built.

ALEX EDMANS, Finance Professor, London Business School and author of THE MADNESS OF MARKETS

At last, thanks to Robin Wigglesworth, we have an engaging and colorful history of the bond market and the innovative financiers who launched, shaped, and improved it from its origins in the Middle Ages to the 21st century. This is a major contribution to financial history.

RICHARD SYLLA, author of A HISTORY OF INTEREST RATES

Wigglesworth brings to life the unlikely cast of visionaries, rogues, and nation-builders who shaped the bond market over eight centuries. The result is a riveting history of the financial instrument that funded empires, defeated Napoleon, and quietly underwrites the modern world.

WILLIAM GOETZMANN, Yale University, author of MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING

I love the bond market for the many secrets it reveals on a daily basis about our global economy and the many, many individual components of it. But it also an enigmatic, mysterious and poorly understood phenomenon. Wigglesworth's important work pulls the curtain back on the wonders and the risks inherent in a world awash in some $340 trillion of debt. "Whether we like it or not," he writes, "we now live in a world where the bond market can truly intimidate everyone." A Fabulous Debt correctly asks the important question of whether we, collectively, have the guts to deal with that reality.

WILLIAM COHAN, author of POWER FAILURE, THE LAST TYCOONS and HOUSE OF CARDS

A readable, wise and panoramic history of the bond markets from their inception in Venice in 1172 through to the current day. And, given the imminent threat of yet another sovereign debt crisis, most timely.

EDWARD CHANCELLOR author of THE PRICE OF TIME: THE REAL STORY OF INTEREST

A sweeping history of a force-multiplying, time-travelling, fraud-enabling, civilisation-building invention. Erudite, educational and a lot of fun.

TIM HARFORD, author of HOW TO MAKE THE WORLD ADD UP

Robin hasn't just written a brilliant chronicle of the bond market, but has managed to explain how these financial tools built the world as we know it. Bonds have been deployed as weapons of war and empire-building, and as the instruments of idealists who dreamed of a united America (and a united Europe); they have also fueled destructive greed and financial mania. A scintillating read for anyone who wants to understand not just how bonds shaped our history, but how they might shape where we're going.

MIKE BIRD, author of THE LAND TRAP

From twelfth century Venice to the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond, a lively account of the instrument that lies at the heart of the global financial system.

JOHN CASSIDY, New Yorker writer and author of CAPITALISM AND ITS CRITICS

"In A Fabulous Debt, Robin Wigglesworth rescues the bond market from its reputation for dullness and restores it to its rightful place at the center of world history — the instrument that was the foundation of Medieval Venice's trading wealth, that kept Britain solvent through the Napoleonic Wars and financed the Union through the American Civil War, that funded the great railroad booms of the 19th century and now underwrites the AI data center. It made modern states possible and, by allowing them to borrow too much, has occasionally destroyed them. In Wigglesworth's hands this is narrative financial history at its best: erudite without being arid, ambitious in scope but never losing sight of the human beings who built this extraordinary machine."

Liaquat Ahamed, author of '1873'

In case you're ever tempted to think bonds are boring, Wigglesworth has written a powerful book proving they are absolutely not. Instead, they should be viewed as one of the great modern innovations of our age that urgently needs better understanding. In a sweeping, magisterial account, he explains how bonds first emerged in medieval Europe. They then played a vital role in powering the Renaissance and the emergence of European economic and political strength. Subsequently, bonds were central to the rise of London as a financial centre, and the dramatic emergence of American finance in the 20th century. The account is highly readable and accessible to anyone, featuring lively characters and stories. But it also provides a thoroughly expert analysis of markets, that is very insight for any student or practitioners of finance. A must read for anyone interested in history, finance, money - or simply the nature of innovation

Gillian Tett, Financial Times columnist and author of 'Anthro-Vision'