In 1720, the South Sea Company was one of the most valuable businesses in Britain until a spectacular collapse in its publicly traded shares triggered the country’s first major stock market crisis. At the centre of the story was John Blunt, a shoemaker’s son who rose through the ranks of the financial world to become one of the company’s key architects. In this episode, hosts Robin Wigglesworth and Gillian Tett speak to Professor Thomas Levenson about the speculation and financial engineering that inflated the South Sea Bubble, the strange copycat schemes it inspired and how its dramatic fallout helped reshape modern finance, while leaving Blunt disgraced and forever associated with one of history’s most notorious financial crashes.
Further reading:
Money for Nothing: South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism (2020), by Thomas Levenson. Levenson’s latest book is A Pox on Fools: The Grifters and Sinners Who Want Us to Reject Vaccines (2026).
Credits: Getty Images
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Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth
Producer: Lulu Smyth
Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight
Executive Producer: 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: Flo Phillips
Video editor: Josh Divney and Kristen Kenyon 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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