The Story of Money

What is money? And what can a small island in Micronesia teach us about how it works? On Yap, a remote island in the western Pacific, giant calcite “Rai” stones once functioned as currency, where ownership and collective trust — rather than physical possession — defined wealth and status. In this episode of The Story of Money, macroeconomist and author Felix Martin joins hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth to explore the stones of Yap, the origins of money and why the traditional “barter theory” may be a myth.

Further reading:
Money: The Unauthorised Biography (2015) by Felix Martin
Uap of the Carolines (1910) by William Henry Furness III
A Treatise on Money (1930) by John Maynard Keynes
The Island of Stone Money (1991) and Money Mischief (1992) by Milton Friedman
‘Tralla La’ in Uncle Scrooge #6 by Carl Barks (1954)
His Majesty O’Keefe (1954) Warner Bros

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

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth
Guest: Felix Martin
Producer: Lulu Smyth
Senior Producers: Laurence Knight and Michela Tindera
Executive Producers: Flo Phillips and Manuela Saragosa
Original music: Breen Turner
Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis
Podcast Development: Laura Clarke
FT Global Head of Audio: Cheryl Brumley
Video editors: Kristen Kenyon and Josh Divney at Podcast Discovery

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 19th-century America almost anyone could print their own money – and many did. One of the most notable figures to take this up was a man named James Brown, a charismatic conman who built a fortune producing fake banknotes. In this episode of The Story of Money, Stephen Mihm, a professor of history at the University of Georgia, introduces hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth to “the hardest working man in counterfeiting”. They discuss the parallels between banking in the Wild West and the advent of cryptocurrencies today, and the role trust plays in all financial systems.

Further reading:
A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States, by Stephen Mihm (2007)
The Square and Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power, by Niall Ferguson (2018)

To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, and also follow the show's dedicated YouTube channel here.

Learn more at ft.com/tsom

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth
Guest: Stephen Mihm
Producer: Lulu Smyth
Senior Producer: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight
Executive Producers: Flo Phillips and Manuela Saragosa
Original music: Breen Turner
Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis
Podcast Development: Laura Clarke
FT Global Head of Audio: Cheryl Brumley
Video editor: Kristen Kenyon at Podcast Discovery

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every now and then a new technology comes along that changes everything – electricity, computers, potentially AI. In mid-19th-century America, that technology was the steam locomotive. It knitted the US economy together, driving the nation’s industrialisation during the Gilded Age. But along the way, it also caused one of the biggest financial crises in American history. FT Alphaville editor Robin Wigglesworth tells his co-host, FT columnist Gillian Tett, the story of the great railway bubble that ended in the Panic of 1873. It’s also the story of the spectacular rise and fall of Jay Cooke, the greatest banker of his day, who lost a fortune betting on a railroad that would eventually span the North American continent – just not in time to repay its debts. Robin and Gillian discuss what lessons the financier’s fate holds for the investors gambling on today’s AI boom.

Credits: New York Times Archive, Otto Herschan Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images, Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Further reading:
Jay Cooke: Financier of the Civil War, by Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer (1907)
Jay Cooke's gamble: the Northern Pacific Railroad, the Sioux, and the Panic of 1873, by M John Lubetkin (2006)
Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America, by Richard White (2012)
Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great For The Economy, by Daniel Gross (2007)
A Fabulous Debt: The Epic Story of How Bonds Built the Modern World, by Robin Wigglesworth (2026 – forthcoming)

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:

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth
Producer: Lulu Smyth
Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight
Executive Producers: Flo Phillips and 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: Cheryl Brumley
Video editor: Josh Divney at Podcast Discovery

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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

Does scientific, artistic or political brilliance translate into investing success? It’s a topical question with hedge funds today accused of sucking talent away from the rest of the economy. So, the FT’s Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth sat down with reporter Toby Nangle, who has dug into the archives to assess the investment portfolios of Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, John Maynard Keynes and other widely regarded geniuses of the past. What Toby found may surprise you, as will the historical wildcard he’s unearthed.

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.

Learn more at ft.com/tsom

Want more?
Read Toby’s full FT article here.
Toby’s sources:
On Churchill: https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-More-Champagne-Churchill-Money/dp/1784081817
On J.M.W. Turner:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5718586
On John Maynard Keynes:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2023011
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2287262
On Einstein:
https://einstein-website.de/en/what-happened-to-the-nobel-prize-money/#:~:text=By%20May%201924%2C%20Mileva%20had,visible%20result%20of%20my%20musings%E2%80%9D.
On Jane Austen:
https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/vol36no1/toran/

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth
Guest: Toby Nangle
Producer: Lulu Smyth
Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight
Executive Producers: Flo Phillips and Manuela Saragosa
Original music: Breen Turner
Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis
Podcast Development: Laura Clarke
FT Global Head of Audio: Cheryl Brumley
Video editor: Josh Divney at Podcast Discovery

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Long before modern economics, rulers such as Hammurabi in ancient Mesopotamia grappled with a political problem that still haunts our economies today: when people’s debts grow faster than their ability to repay them, the entire economic system can start to crack. Hammurabi adopted a radical solution: cancel debts entirely. Amanda H Podany, professor emeritus of history at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a research affiliate at New York University, tells The Story of Money hosts, FT columnist Gillian Tett and FT Alphaville editor Robin Wigglesworth, what these debt jubilees say about how the ancient Mesopotamian economy worked and what it might teach us about debt today.

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.

Learn more at ft.com/tsom

Want more?

Check out Dr Podany’s book, Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth
Producer: Lulu Smyth
Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight
Executive Producers: Flo Phillips and Manuela Saragosa
Original music and sound engineering: Breen Turner
Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Gioumpasis
Podcast Development: Laura Clarke
FT Global Head of Audio: Cheryl Brumley
Video editor: Kristen Kenton at Podcast Discovery

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.