Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed
Many of us take it as a given that the Great Depression - the consequences of which reverberated for decades, crippling the future of an entire generation and setting the stage for WWII - resulted from a confluence of inexorable forces beyond any one person or government's control. In fact, as erudite economist Liaquat Ahamed explains, it was the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown. "In Lords of Finance", we meet the neurotic and enigmatic Montagu Norman of the Bank of England; the xenophobic and suspicious Emile Moreau of the Banque de France; the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank; and the dynamic Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. These four men were as prominent in their time as Alan Greenspan, Hank Paulson and Mervyn King are today, but their names were lost to history, their story untold, until now.Harnessing a keen sense of history and the narrative skills of the novelist, Liaquat Ahamed tells their story in vivid and gripping detail. As yet another period of economic turmoil makes headlines today, the Great Depression and the year 1929 remain the benchmark for true financial mayhem. Offering a new understanding of the origins and global nature of financial crises, "Lords of Finance" a timely and arresting reminder that individuals - their ambitions, limitations and human nature - lie at the very heart of global catastrophe.
With degrees in economics from the Universities of Cambridge and Harvard, Liaquat Ahamed has witnessed at close hand the way countrys' economic policy is made and executed as a professional economist at the World Bank during the 1980s. He has since worked as an investment manager, with a ring-side seat at a sequence of financial crises, from the collapse of the European Monetary System in the 1990s to the current 'sub-prime' economic downturn. This is his first book.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780434015412 |
| ISBN 10 | 0434015415 |
| Title | Lords of Finance |
| Author | Liaquat Ahamed |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Cornerstone |
| Year published | 2009-04-30 |
| Number of pages | 576 |
| Prizes | Winner of Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award 2010, Winner of Pulitzer Prize for History 2010, Winner of Spear's Book Awards: Financial History Book of the Year 2009, Winner of Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2009, Short-listed for BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2009 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |