The Darien disaster of 1700 drove Scotland into union with England. The crash of 2008 wrecked the city¹s two largest and oldest banks and its reputation. In between, Edinburgh rose to become a global beacon for the financial world. But this is not just the story of our financial institutions, but of the personalities too; hard-drinking Presbyterian ministers, Sir Walter Scott, and Fred Goodwin, the man who broke the biggest bank in the world. Ray’s book linked to this talk: The Rise and Fall of the City of Money: A Financial History of Edinburgh.