Crash Bang Wallop

The Inside Story of London's Big Bang and a Financial Revolution that Changed the World

By: Iain Martin

Narrated by: Matt Addis

Published to mark the 30th anniversary of the financial revolution known as 'Big Bang', Crash Bang Wallop will tell the gripping story of how the changes introduced in the 1980s in the City of London transformed our world.

Attitudes to money and the way we measure value and status were completely reshaped by Big Bang, and it had an extraordinary impact on politics, on style, on technology, on the class system, on questions of public ownership, and on the geography of London. Perhaps more than anything, Big Bang revolutionised the international markets, as the capital became a testing ground for financial globalisation, with huge repercussions for the global economy.

The definitive insider's account of this critically important moment in modern history, Crash Bang Wallop will also explore what's next for global finance as it gets ready to undergo yet another revolution.

'Iain Martin tells it brilliantly, mixing fury-inducing narrative with an acute eye for the broader conclusion.' Observer

(P)2016 Hodder & Stoughton©2016 Kennedy Herd Ltd.

Critic reviews

Fascinating . . . it is worth raising your eyes from the Brexit mud-slinging to read a new book on the history of the "Big Bang" financial reform . . .UK politicians should take heed of Martin's book.

An exciting story, told with verve

With a journalist's eye for a good tale and a narrative style that rips along, Martin has turned an unloved part of British history about an unloved industry into a fascinating yarn.

As historical accounts of modern finance go, this is a corker.

For anyone interested in finance . . . this is a readable history of how the City became the world's money hub.

Highly readable and well-informed

It is refreshing to read this lively account of a series of actions that add up to one of the undoubted, if not undisputed, successes of modern government action . . . a timely reminder of how the City of London got to where it is now

Martin's great trick in the book is his ear for echoes of the present in stories from the past, making the old City feel remarkably familiar today . . . Above all, Martin has a warmth for his subject, and its cast of characters, without excusing their feelings . . . With the journalist's eye for a good tale and a narrative style that rips along, Martin has turned an unloved part of British history about an unloved industry into a fascinating yarn. (Philip Aldrick)

His book confirmed to me that the City is a financial centre like no other

Lively financial-cultural history of the City

I found this pleasurable, listenable and informative all through. The writer shows his roots via a journalistic flair. I like the very compact explanations of important financial events. I love to hear the Mother Tongue, the King's English, so well used and spoken. The only thing I would change is, I would shift to just a bit less of the cultural stuff (always a peeve to hear overmuch about whatever baubles the latest generation of young Turks were flashing at any moment), and a few more financial nuts and bolts. But the political and cultural parts are, to some extent, essential to the comprehension of it all. And, the headline events are all here: the fall of Barings, Thatcher's rise and fall, all that.
As the author observes, this is yet another moment in which the City faces an existential crisis and must reinvent itself.

It was, um, ok

A little too focused on the personalities, and not enough on the underlying forces that drove the change.