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Across five episodes, Rachel Botsman traces the intriguing history of trust.

Rachel looks back on what she sees as the three major chapters of trust in human history. In the broadest terms, these are Local Trust, Institutional Trust, and Distributed Trust. As we’ve moved from one to the next, we've experienced, what she calls, ‘Trust Shifts’.

These shifts have happened because humans took a risk to try something new. To innovate in ways that have shaped our behaviours, for better or worse. Rachel reflects on how each trust shift has profoundly changed the dynamics of our lives; whether that’s how we bank or buy goods, vote, learn, travel, date, and importantly, find and consume information.

In Episode 1, Rachel takes us right back to 11th century medieval Europe, where the 'Maghribi traders', a tight-knit group of Jewish traders, made a leap of trust. They are the main characters of our first trust shift, when we began to trust outside of our local communities for the first time.

Featuring Avner Greif, Emeritus Professor of Economics at Stanford Univeristy and MacArthur Genius.

Rachel Botsman is the author of Who Can You Trust? and What's Mine Is Yours. She was Oxford University’s first Trust Fellow and has worked with world leaders, the Bank of England, CEOs and financial regulators.

Producer: Eliza Lomas for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Audio, Bristol.
Editor: Chris Ledgard.