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A Fabulous Debt

The Epic Story of How Bonds Built the Modern World

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A Fabulous Debt

By: Robin Wigglesworth
Narrated by: Frits Zernike
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From veteran Financial Times journalist Robin Wigglesworth, an epic history of the debt that built the modern world.

Long considered the "boring" corner of finance, bonds are anything but. They are bigger than the stock market and rival even the global banking system in influence. But they are also misunderstood – treated as mere debt, when in fact their impact is radically different.

From medieval Venice to modern Wall Street, Robin Wigglesworth uncovers the sweeping, unveiling story of the bond market. With clarity and wit, this is a people’s history of finance: rich in drama, full of colourful characters, and bursting with insights.

Bonds have funded everything from the Crusades to climate tech, Netflix series to AI data centres. Pooling capital from citizens and merchants at an unmatched scale, they have been the hidden force behind some of humanity’s highest achievements and greatest calamities. This isn’t just a book about the past. It’s a guide to the future of finance, and a love letter to the engine that keeps it running.

"A COMPELLING HISTORY OF A POWERFUL IDEA" - Jacob Goldstein, author of Money

© Robin Wigglesworth 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Corporate & Public Finance Investing & Trading Personal Finance Stocks Banking Wall Street Taxation Imperialism Capitalism Global Financial Crisis
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Critic reviews

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)
"Entertaining and enlightening. Wigglesworth takes a panoramic, almost cinematic approach, finding the tension and drama in episodes where bonds helped shape the course of history." (JASON ZWEIG, financial journalist and columnist for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
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)
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