A Fabulous Debt: The Epic Story of How Bonds Built the Modern World

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 have funded everything from the Crusades to climate tech, Netflix series to AI data centers. They are now bigger than the stock market and rival even the global banking system in influence. They are also misunderstood—treated as mere debt, when in fact their form, function, and impact are radically different.

In A Fabulous Debt, Robin Wigglesworth—The Financial Times’ Global Finance Correspondent, and author of the acclaimed Trillions—offers a sweeping, affectionate history of the bond market. From the dyke-builders of 17th-century Holland to the trillion-dollar portfolios of BlackRock, this is a people’s history of finance: rich in drama, full of colorful characters, and bursting with insight.

With clarity and wit, Wigglesworth takes readers from medieval Venice to modern Wall Street, tracing how bonds evolved from obscure financial instruments into the invisible architecture of the modern world. Along the way, we meet warlords and water boards, merchant princes and mathematicians, financiers and fraudsters—all of whom helped build the most powerful machine in global finance.

This isn’t just a book about the past. It's a guide to the present and future of the financial system—and a love letter to the engine that keeps it running.

Robin Wigglesworth is the Financial Times’ global finance correspondent, and author of Trillions, the book on the past, present and future of passive investing. He currently lives in Oslo, Norway, but covers macroeconomics, finance, investing and markets internationally for the FT.

“A Fabulous Debt is an excellent read, full of character, colour, and anecdote… It has the pace of a Hollywood thriller, in which plot events accelerate as the film hurtles toward its climax.”
— The Times

“The author’s accessible distillation of data and Dickensian eye for memorable events and characters make this a must-read for anyone interested in global finance.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Our new PM is on a never-ending regional tour, so he may not have time for A Fabulous Debt, which is a shame. He might learn something from it to his lasting advantage”
— Literary Review

“A delightful history full of con men, kings, and prices moving inversely to yields. A Fabulous Debt is a compelling history of a powerful idea.”
— Jacob Goldstein, author of Money

“If you think that bubbles and panics are largely about equities, then guess again. 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

“While the noisy stock market tends to grab the public’s attention, it is as Robin Wigglesworth shows in this superb book the quieter bond market which have won wars, built the infrastructure of modern life, and sometimes brought down governments. 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, color, and insight, A Fabulous Debt is more than a finance book: it’s the story of the modern world.”
— Alex Edmans, professor of finance, London Business School, and author of The Madness of Markets

“At last 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 twenty-first century. This is a major contribution to financial history.”
— Richard Sylla, New York University, coauthor of A History of Interest Rates

Wigglesworth’s lively account spans the history of one of the most important financial innovations ever created. Who would have thought the story of bonds is full of drama, intrigue, and invention? From the murder of a Venetian doge and the taming of Dutch floodwaters to the defeat of Napoleon and the forging of the American republic, he shows how debt is embedded in the human challenge to build and sustain the modern world.”
— William Goetzmann, Yale University, author of Money Changes Everything

“Utterly absorbing and propulsive.”
— William Cohan, author of Power Failure, The Last Tycoons, and House of Cards

“Yes, a book about the history of the bond market can be 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

“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

“A sweeping history of a force-multiplying, time-traveling, fraud-enabling, civilization-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 panic and beyond, a lively account of the instrument that lies at the heart of the global financial system.”
— John Cassidy, staff writer, The New Yorker, and author of Capitalism and its Critics