My new book, The Rise & Fall of the City of Money, starts and ends with a financial catastrophe. The Darien disaster of the early eighteenth century drove Scotland into union with England, but spawned the institutions which transformed Edinburgh into a global financial centre. The crash of 2008 wrecked the city’s two largest and oldest banks – and its reputation.
Tag: Library of Mistakes
Fact can be as dramatic as fiction, as I discovered during my research for a new book on Edinburgh’s turbulent financial history. The archives revealed a fascinating story of the unscrupulous side of Scotland’s great novelist. And how he would redeem himself.