Gillian Tett

speaker

1,226 appearances 12 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 2 Sep

Gillian Tett’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 12 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 4.

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The Story of Money · The deal that put the dollar at the centre of the world · 20 May 2026 podcast

So you've got this inbuilt tension between their visions and between the men from the get go. matched

Did they try and thrash out their differences at all before Bretton Woods, or was Bretton Woods the first time they really clashed? matched

And that brings us to one of my favourite scenes in your book, which is what you call the Tower of Babel on Wheels. matched

Because it was summer, um it was hot, and so Keynes and the others decided to head to the mountains up in New Hampshire, and hundreds of delegates from forty four different Allied nations all matched

all got onto a train together to go up to Bretton Woods and to try and thrash out the agreement. matched

Speaking lots of different languages, which is why the Tower of Babel. matched

Um in fact Keynes's wife Lydia is pressed into service as a translator between the Russian delegations and the Americans, which turns out to be crucial. matched

But off they go, up to Bretton Woods. matched

And after the break, we will hear about what happened next. matched

I have been there a few times and in fact I once took my kids there when I was a juggling single mum to an economics conference where they ran around the lawn, they managed to dive bomb George Soros in a swimming pool and practically rugby tackle Paul Volcker. matched

So I have very fond mess memories of how beautiful the hotel is in the middle of the mountains and the woods. matched

Um but in those days it wasn't quite so beautiful and they've refurbished it since, haven't they? matched

So of course one of the not so secret aspects of Bretton Woods was that whenever you put lots of people in matched

under huge pressure together at close quarters with lots of alcohol, there was inevitably some fraternizing, womanizing that happened as well. matched

Um how bad was it? matched

Right, and of course there are those extraordinary verandas, like many Gilded Age mansions, where people held meetings um and would have been nice and cool in the summertime in Breton Woods. matched

And that's where a lot of the conversations actually took place alongside the indoor actual conference rooms. matched

So how do the negotiations actually go um once they all got over their hangovers? matched

Police achieve matched

So what about the dollar? matched

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