He was the bruiser of Wall Street. In the early noughties, New York attorney-general Eliot Spitzer took it upon himself to expose the lies of stock analysts during the dotcom bubble. His crusade blindsided the bankers and made him one of America's most popular politicians. People even spoke of him as a possible US president before a scandal ended his political career almost overnight. In this episode of The Story of Money, host Gillian Tett speaks to Brooke Masters, FT US managing editor and author of Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer, to explore how Spitzer reshaped financial regulation during the dotcom era, why his aggressive tactics won both admirers and enemies and why his legacy still matters today.

Further reading:

Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer, (2006), Brooke Masters

Credits: Getty Images

Love listening to The Story of Money? Join Robin and Gillian on Saturday September 5 at Kenwood House Gardens in London, or online as the FT Weekend paper comes to life. Register now at ft.com/festival and enjoy 10% off with code FTPODCAST.

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Producers: Laurence Knight and Lulu Smyth

Executive producer: Manuela Saragosa

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Gioumpasis

Podcast development: Laura Clarke

FT global head of audio: Flo Phillips 

Video editor: Richard Topping

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected].

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you know that the Prophet Mohammed was a caravan trader? He helped arrange convoys of thousands of camels carrying valuable goods across the Arabian desert. And he put his commercial nous to good use. Not only did he found one of the world’s great religions, but also a model of free-market capitalism that Friedrich Hayek would have approved of. That is the claim of this week’s guest, the libertarian economist and author Benedikt Koehler. He tells hosts Robin Wigglesworth and Gillian Tett how Islamic commercial practices were, in his view, eventually copied by medieval Europeans to great effect.

Further reading:

Early Islam and the Birth of Capitalism (2014), by Benedikt Koehler

The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East (2010), by Timur Kuran

Muhammad: Man and Prophet (1995), by Adil Salahi

Credits: Getty Images

Love listening to The Story of Money? Join Robin and Gillian on Saturday September 5 at Kenwood House Gardens in London, or online as the FT Weekend paper comes to life. Register now at ft.com/festival and enjoy 10% off with code FTPodcast. 

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Producer: Laurence Knight 

Executive producer: Manuela Saragosa

With additional help from: Saffeya Ahmed

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Gioumpasis

Podcast development: Laura Clarke

FT global head of audio: Flo Phillips 

Video editors: Josh Divney and Kristen Kenyon at Podcast Discovery

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected].

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 1873 Gründerkrach, the spectacular stock market crash that followed Germany’s unification, is one of history’s great financial maelstroms. But its most enduring legacy isn’t about money. Host Robin Wigglesworth speaks to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Liaquat Ahamed about how the resulting economic malaise fuelled social division and transformed old prejudices into antisemitic conspiracy. It gave birth to ideas that would resurface with catastrophic consequences decades later in the 20th century.

Further reading:

1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World (2026), by Liaquat Ahamed 

Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire (1977), by Fritz Stern

Credits: Getty Images, Alamy

Love listening to The Story of Money? Join Robin and Gillian on Saturday September 5 at Kenwood House Gardens in London, or online as the FT Weekend paper comes to life. Register now at ft.com/festival and enjoy 10% off with code FTPodcast. 

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Senior producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight 

Executive producer: Manuela Saragosa

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Gioumpasis

Podcast development: Laura Clarke

FT global head of audio: Flo Phillips 

Video editors: Josh Divney and Kristen Kenyon at Podcast Discovery

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected]

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ancient Rome is often depicted as a glamorous empire of power, sophistication and wealth. Yet for most people, the reality of daily life was precarious. Host Robin Wigglesworth talks to Kim Bowes, author of Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent, about how ordinary Romans combined real grit with surprising financial sophistication in order to weather a system that was stacked against them. They uncover a hidden financial world in which women often ran the household finances, families delivered their own children into debt bondage and shepherds might sell wool futures on rented sheep. A far cry from the Rome of popular imagination, this is the ancient Roman empire as most Romans experienced it.

Further reading: Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent by Kim Bowes 

Credits: Getty Images

Love listening to The Story of Money? Join Robin and Gillian on Saturday 5 September at Kenwood House Gardens in London, or online as the FT Weekend paper comes to life. Register now at ft.com/festival and enjoy 10% off with code FTPodcast. 

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected].

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Producer: Lulu Smyth

Senior Producer: Michela Tindera 

Executive Producer: Manuela Saragosa

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis

Podcast Development: Laura Clarke

FT Global Head of Audio: Flo Phillips 

Video editor: Josh Divney and Kristen Kenyon at Podcast Discovery

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The construction of the Erie Canal is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in American history. But its most influential legacy is not the waterway itself, it is how it was paid for. Hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth speak with financial historian Richard Sylla about how a gutsy New York City mayor won over politicians, citizens and investors to build something that not only transformed trade in a young nation, but also made New York City a financial centre and laid the blueprint for America’s municipal bond market. 

Further reading:

Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation (2006), by Peter L. Bernstein 

Credits: Getty Images. A performance of ‘Meeting of the Waters of the Hudson and Erie’ published by cplotter on YouTube 

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Producer: Lulu Smyth

Senior Producer: Michela Tindera

Executive Producer: Manuela Saragosa

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Gioumpasis

Podcast Development: Laura Clarke

FT Global Head of Audio: Flo Phillips 

Video editors: Josh Divney and Kristen Kenyon at Podcast Discovery

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected].

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jesse Livermore was a legendary trader who made and lost several fortunes in the early 20th century, most famously by shorting the Wall Street crash of 1929. His early life was immortalised in the roman à clef Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre, and his trading insights and stunning successes continue to inspire professional traders and would-be traders to this day. But his life also contains cautionary tales about the ease with which success can morph into failure, and what happens when the buzz of the markets is no longer enough. Host Robin Wigglesworth and the FT's US financial commentator Robert Armstrong explore the extraordinary life of the greatest day trader in history.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide and mental health.

Further reading:

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1923), Edwin Lefèvre

1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation (2025), Andrew Ross Sorkin 

Credits: Getty Images, The New York Times 

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected].

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Producer: Lulu Smyth

Senior Producer: Michela Tindera 

Executive Producer: Manuela Saragosa

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis

Podcast Development: Laura Clarke

FT Global Head of Audio: Flo Phillips 

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720, it wiped out fortunes and plunged Britain into its first great stock market crisis. The collapse of the South Sea Company, a government-backed scheme that promised to turn national debt into riches, left the country's finances in disarray and threatened the credibility of the British state itself. Into the chaos stepped Robert Walpole. Charged with restoring confidence, he restructured the government's debts and laid the foundations for Britain's emergence as a financial superpower. In doing so, he became the country's first de facto prime minister, a title he rejected initially because it was widely used as an insult. In this episode, Robin Wigglesworth and Gillian Tett explore Walpole’s rise to power with Thomas Levenson, professor of science writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Further reading: 

Money for Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism by Thomas Levenson 

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Producer: Lulu Smyth

Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight 

Executive Producer: Manuela Saragosa

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

FT Head of Audio: Flo Phillips

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected]

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1720, the South Sea Company was one of the most valuable businesses in Britain until a spectacular collapse in its publicly traded shares triggered the country’s first major stock market crisis. At the centre of the story was John Blunt, a shoemaker’s son who rose through the ranks of the financial world to become one of the company’s key architects. In this episode, hosts Robin Wigglesworth and Gillian Tett speak to Professor Thomas Levenson about the speculation and financial engineering that inflated the South Sea Bubble, the strange copycat schemes it inspired and how its dramatic fallout helped reshape modern finance, while leaving Blunt disgraced and forever associated with one of history’s most notorious financial crashes.

Further reading: 

Money for Nothing: South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism (2020), by Thomas Levenson. Levenson’s latest book is A Pox on Fools: The Grifters and Sinners Who Want Us to Reject Vaccines (2026). 

Credits: Getty Images

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Producer: Lulu Smyth

Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight 

Executive Producer: Manuela Saragosa

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis

Podcast Development: Laura Clarke

FT Global Head of Audio: Flo Phillips 

Video editor: Josh Divney and Kristen Kenyon at Podcast Discovery

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected].

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William E Simon was a bond trader-turned US cabinet secretary under President Richard Nixon. He was also abrasive, polarising and the “father of private equity”, according to Hettie O’Brien, author of The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself. She tells hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth how Simon orchestrated a deal that was so revolutionary, and so lucrative, that it kickstarted the leveraged buyout trend of the 1980s, which later gave way to the modern private equity industry. But how did we get from that one deal to a sector that’s now one of the largest alternative asset classes in the world? And if he was alive today, what would Simon think of the industry he helped create? 

Further reading:

The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself, by Hettie O’Brien (2026)

Private capital has raised more money than it has returned 

Credits: Getty Images

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Producer: Lulu Smyth

Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight 

Executive Producer: Manuela Saragosa

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis

Podcast Development: Laura Clarke

FT Global Head of Audio: Flo Phillips 

Video editor: Josh Divney and Kristen Kenyon at Podcast Discovery

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected].

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, when you think of a dollar, the US dollar probably comes to mind first. But that hasn’t always been the case. In this episode of The Story of Money, Brendan Greeley, the author of The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money, explains the origins of the world’s first dollar, the Joachimstaler, and the hapless Bohemian count who played a role in its creation. Greeley, and hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth discuss the dollar’s evolution, and whether it may even outlive the current US dollar system. 

Further reading:

The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money, by Brendan Greeley (2026)  

Credits: Getty Images, Brendan Greeley 

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoney 

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth

Producer: Lulu Smyth

Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight 

Executive Producer: Manuela Saragosa

Original music and sound design: Breen Turner

Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis

Podcast Development: Laura Clarke

FT Global Head of Audio: Flo Phillips 

Video editor: Josh Divney and Kristen Kenyon at Podcast Discovery

Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected].

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.