Product Description

Tells the story of individuals - their ambitions, limitations and human nature - which lie at the heart of global catastrophe. This book features the four bankers who truly broke the world: Norman Montagu of the bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the NY Federal Reserve, Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbanlk and Emile Moreau of the Banque de France.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12098 in Books
• Published on: 2010-01-07
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.75" h x 1.45" w x 5.00" l, 1.00 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Features

• New
• Mint Condition
• Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
• Guaranteed packaging
• No quibbles returns

Review
I've read lots of books about economics this last year. this is one of the very best... Superb --Standard

A fluent and indirect paean to Keynesian economics... this resonates with the contemporary turmoil in global financial markets --Financial Times

Ahamed unravels the story of the most terrible financial collapse in history from the perspective of the four men who were largely responsible: the leading central bankers in the United States, Britain, France and Germany --Mail on sunday

The strength of this book is in humanising the world's descent into economic chaos --Robert Peston - The Sunday Times

[a] very readable portrait of the bankers who allowed the Great Depression to happen --Telegraph

'magisterial' -- Observer

'superlative' -- New York Times

'a great read' -- George Soros

'brilliant and timely' -- Guardian

`Highly readable ... [Ahamed] cannot have foreseen how timely his book would be' --Niall Ferguson

From the Back Cover

THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE.

The current financial crisis has only one parallel: the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and subsequent Great Depression of the 1930s, which crippled the future of an entire generation and set the stage for the horrors of the Second World War. Yet the economic meltdown could have been avoided, had it not been for the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers.

In Lords of Finance, we meet these men, the four bankers who truly broke the world. Their names were lost to history, their lives and actions forgotten, until now. Liaquat Ahamed's magisterial Lords of Finance tells their story in vivid and gripping detail, in a timely and arresting reminder that individuals - their ambitions, limitations and human nature - lie at the very heart of global catastrophe.

About the Author
With degrees in economics from the Universities of Cambridge and Harvard, Liaquat Ahamed has witnessed at close hand the way countries' 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.