The Story of Money

A century ago, when depositors lost confidence in a bank, they’d rush to withdraw their cash. In 1971, US president Richard Milhous Nixon faced a similar dilemma. But his problem wasn’t ordinary citizens fearing for their savings. Instead, it was America’s closest allies who were nervously eyeing the dwindling supply of gold in Fort Knox at a time when the dollar’s value was tied to gold and allies’ currencies were in turn tied to the dollar. And just like a beleaguered bank manager of yore, Nixon chose to shut America’s doors to further withdrawals. His decision threatened to pull the plug on the entire international monetary system established at Bretton Woods in 1944. It was so unexpected and outrageous, it became known as the “Nixon Shock”. In the first of two episodes on the topic, hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth get the story from economist and ex-financier Jeffrey Garten – a man with a CV so long that he once even worked for the Nixon administration himself.

Further reading:
Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy, by Jeffrey E Garten (2021)
Gold and the dollar crisis, by Robert Triffin (1960)

Credits: Getty Images, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library

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
Original music: Breen Turner
Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Gioumpasis
Podcast Development: Laura Clarke
Video editor: Kristen Kenyon and Josh Divney 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
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Priscilla Wakefield was a Quaker, writer and social reformer who believed financial security shouldn’t be reserved for the wealthy. Living in late 18th- and early 19th-century England, she founded the country’s first penny savings bank, giving working women and children a safe place to save. Victoria Bateman, author of Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth and Power, tells hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth about Wakefield’s life, her ideas and how a simple concept — saving small sums — helped spark a quiet revolution in financial inclusion, with lessons for today. But that didn’t stop Wakefield from running into financial problems of her own.

Further reading:
Economica: A global history of women, wealth and power, by Victoria Bateman (2025)
Reflections on the present condition of the female sex, by Priscilla Wakefield, (reprinted 2015, Cambridge University Press)

Credits: Cambridge Library Collection, National Portrait Gallery, Disruption Worthies, National Park Service, Hollinger & Rockey

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: / @ftthestoryofmoney

Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth
Producers: Lulu Smyth 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
Video editor: Kristen Kenyon and Josh Divney 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.

Take 730 delegates from 44 countries, plus another 2,000 or so hangers-on. House them in a remote, dilapidated hotel with holes in the roof and broken furniture. Deliver a train wagon filled with alcohol. Throw in some Russian spies, German prisoners of war, a troupe of bombshell “secretaries” and a magician. And then have the lead protagonist, the world’s most famous economist, almost die of a heart attack. What does that give you? Only the most successful international monetary negotiation in history. This is the story of the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, as relayed by journalist and author Ed Conway to hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth. The three weeks of chaotic talks would deliver three decades of postwar peace and prosperity, and enthrone the US dollar as the global reserve currency. The discussions also nearly killed Britain’s lead negotiator, John Maynard Keynes, and would later disgrace his US counterpart, Harry Dexter White.

Further reading:
The Summit, by Ed Conway (2015)
The Economic Consequences of the Peace, by John Maynard Keynes (1919)
John Maynard Keynes, biography by Robert Skidelsky in three volumes (1983-2000)
Treasonable Doubt: The Harry Dexter White Spy Case, by R Bruce Craig (2004)

Credits: King’s College Cambridge, the IMF, Dreamstime, Getty Images, the Hulton Archive, Ullstein Bild, Bettmann, Shutterstock, the LIFE Picture Collection, Thomas D McAvoy, Alfred Eisenstaedt, and the Darling Archive.

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 Producers: Flo Phillips and Manuela Saragosa
Original music: Breen Turner
Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis
Podcast Development: Laura Clarke
Video editor: Kristen Kenyon and Josh Divney at Podcast Discovery

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

Love listening to FT Podcasts? Join us live on Saturday June 20 at our inaugural NYC FT Weekend Festival at Spring Studios. Put your questions directly to our experts, experience your favourite podcast in person, and see the FT come to life. Register now and enjoy 10% off with code FTPodcast — this is one Saturday you won’t want to miss.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

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

Love listening to The Story of Money? Join us live on Saturday, June 20 at our inaugural NYC FT Weekend Festival at Spring Studios. Put your questions directly to our experts, experience your favourite podcast in person, and see the FT come to life. Register now and enjoy 10% off with code FTPodcast — this is one Saturday you won’t want to miss.

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.