Edward Chancellor is a British financial historian, financial journalist, and former investment strategist. He wrote the bestselling book Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation in 1999 and Crunch-Time for Credit in 2005. He has just published The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest, which I rate as the best book I've read this year.

Fortune has called Chancellor "one of the greatest financial historians alive, and the Financial Analysts Journal called him "one of the greatest financial writers of our era." Our chat mostly covers The Price of Time. Jim Grant says this work is "A masterpiece of history, analysis--and property understated outrage."