This book review traces Robin Wigglesworth's history of the bond market from the Middle Ages to today, covering its innovations toward efficiency and liquidity as well as its crashes. Bonds are conventionally defined as publicly traded debt with a maturity of at least two years, and the US Treasury market underpins world finance while carrying hazards from rising leverage. From Venetian and Dutch bonds to financing canals and railroads in the 19th century, bonds issued by representative governments were associated with stable currencies, lower interest rates and expanded credit. Many figures in the book meet poor ends, while freer credit markets after World War II nurtured eccentric innovators such as Lew Ranieri and Michael Milken.
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