Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

"Lords of Finance - The Bankers Who Broke the World" by Liaquat Ahamed is an intimate look at the lives of four central bankers and the friendships forged between them. The thesis of the book seems to be that the Great Depression of the 1930's was not caused by a series of converging events but instead was brought about by the decisions made by the "Lords of Finance". Who are these "Lords" you may ask? Germany's Hjalmar Schacht - Head of the Reichbank Benjamin Strong - Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Montagu Norman - Head of the Bank of England Emile Moreau - Head of the Banque de France I have to give kudos to Mr. Ahamed for authoring such an entertaining and interesting look into a subject that some would consider to be dry monetary history or should I say biography seasoned with economic and monetary history. The later description being the secret to the book's entertaining quality. Mr. Ahamed delves into the personal lives of his Lords and focus not only on the economics and policy but also the friendships and animosities. Some people dismiss the book as Keynesian propaganda, since the book doesn't address the financial machinations and manipulation that was going on at the time behind the scenes. Although I sympathize with their criticism, I still believe that the "Lords of Finance - The Bankers who Broke the World" is relevant and insightful, for one should always read opposing views and keep an open mind. For those readers who would like to learn more about the so called "Conspiratorial" point of view, I will recommend some other works following the review. Note: I use the term "Conspiratorial" loosely without the intent of marginalizing that school of thought. I found it revealing that Mr. Ahamed's chose Benjamin Strong "Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York" as the main American Protagonist not any or all of the four individuals who served as "Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors" during the period. The four individuals I refer to are Charles S. Hamlin, William P. G. Harding, Daniel R. Crissinger, and Roy A. Young. I believe Mr. Ahamed's choice of focusing on the private corporation that is Federal Reserve Bank of N.Y. instead of the governmental body called the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was the correct choice. It screams out, true power lies in New York not Washington. The main criticism I've already mentioned above and labeled the "Conspiratorial Point of View" which Mr. Ahamed doesn't address in any significant manner in the book. To give you an example of information ignored by Mr. Ahamed was Congressman Louis McFadden's speech on the floor of the House of Representatives charging the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Secretary of the Treasury with Treason, Unlawful Conversion, Conspiracy, and Fraud. McFadden mentions the funding of Hitler and the Bolsheviks rise to power by the Federal Reserve Banks. The information is out there if you take the time to do the research. To summarize, The "Lords of Finance" is an interesting read the way the story ebbs and flows between the main characters makes for masterwork in writing. I wish most books were this well written. My only issue is with the thesis that a group of bankers mishandled the power of their offices and that lead to the Great Depression, but they didn't intend to cause a depression. I contend that Mr. Ahamed is correct except with respect to intention. To me the evidence shows that at least Montagu Norman and Benjamin Strong and probably Hjalmar Schacht knew that the plan was to cause a depression and they actively worked towards that end in secret. Now for the list of Books: Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution: The Remarkable True Story of the American Capitalists Who Financed the Russian Communists Wall Street and FDR Conjuring Hitler The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve Super Imperialism - New Edition: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominanc Trading with the Enemy: the Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949 Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (2 Volume Set) The Great Contraction, 1929-1933: (New Edition) (Princeton Classic Editions) Money Creators

With almost 470 Amazon reviews (as of the time of this writing), what’s left to add? Presumably by this point the reader of this review knows what this book is about – i.e., how the actions of leaders of the central banks of the U.S., Britain, Germany and France ostensibly brought about the Great Depression of the 1930’s. (But that actually sells the narrative short – read more below.) This book reads like a fascinating novel – but with real-life biographies, and real history, as the background. Ahamed writes for the masses – he does not assume a financial or economic background on the part of the reader. This book is so exceptionally well written that it becomes a page-turner – you just can’t wait to see what happens next! Commendably, the author does not suggest a conspiracy theory among, or incompetence on the part of, the main actors. As indicated below, they were merely further casualties of WWI. Each of the central banks (U.S. Britain, Germany and France) pursued different paths to recovery following the war, and none of them found the right answer. This is probably the result of three main problems: (i) the lack of coordination by the Central Banks in developing a global policy for economic recovery following the war; (ii) a failure on the part of Britain to acknowledge that the global economic landscape had been fundamentally altered by the war; and (iii) a failure on the part of the central actors to understand what was going on. As Maynard Keynes said in 1930 (pg. 374), “We have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand.” While not a course book on international finance, the author does provide enough details to educate the reader about some of the basics (e.g., the gold standard, international lending, devaluation of currency, and international transfers of capital). As for my 4-star rating, and the title of this review (about the narrative being incomplete), I recommend reading the following in order to gain a broader perspective: “Hidden History” (Docherty and Macgregor), which suggests (with considerable convincing evidence) that the British manipulated France and Russia into war with Germany in 1914 in order to remove Germany as an economic competitor to Britain. My guess is that the architects behind this scheme (Lord Alfred Milner, in particular) had no clue as to what the economic consequences of war would be – they just had a narrow-focused goal of removing a commercial competitor. Thus, the central characters of “Lords of Finance” were probably just historical casualties of those with deeper, and darker, long term motives. Britain sowed the wind leading up to WWI, and the world reaped the whirlwind afterwards (with Britain refusing to acknowledge that there was, in fact, a whirlwind, trying vainly to reestablish their place of prominence in world finance by going back to an unrealistic pre-war gold-based exchange rate). All of the financial machinations (on the part of all parties) to rebuild the world economy after WWI failed to appreciate one fundamental concept – i.e., at some point creditors stop providing credit when they suspect that they might not be able to get repaid. Once credit stops, the economy flops. This holds true unless the creditors have a source they can tap to continue their bad lending practices – see next paragraph. I also gave this book a 4-star review because the author never asks – or answers- the fundamental question, “who eventually pays when central banks bail out other banks and nations who have made poor decisions?” The answer is “individual investors and savers.” Case in point: in 2007 an IRA or 401K worth $1 million likely took a 40% hit – i.e., a $400,000 “tax”. Multiply that by say three million such accounts, and suddenly you have $1.2 trillion gone from people’s retirement accounts. Where did all of that wealth go? Answer: to pay for loans by the Fed to bail out Greece, Spain, and bad real estate loans in the U.S. It was basically just a redistribution of wealth – socialism conducted under the guise of “central banking”. Read “The Creature from Jekyll Island” (regarding the establishment, and workings, of the U.S. Federal Reserve system) and you will have any eye-opening education on the truth behind “central banking”.

Lords Of Finance is an excellent book for the average person who wants to understand monetary history from about 1900-1945, the Gold Standard's effect on world economies, and how economic disruption caused by political polarization and mismanagement helped pave the way for Hitler, the Japanese military junta and thereby World War II. (The Japanese history is not mentioned in the Lords of finance, but is covered by the book "Golden Fetters".) Lords of Finance makes the story interesting by detailing the careers and influence of the persons most involved with managing the world's economy at that time: Montagu Norman - Bank of England, Winston Churchill British Minster of the Exchequer (US=Treasury Secretary); Benjamin Strong, President of the New York Federal Reserve; Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank (later indicted war criminal - found not guilty); Emil Moreau of the Banque de France and John Maynard Keynes the "greatest economist of his generation". These, along with some other colorful characters are the Lords of Finance. Lords of Finance covers International finances with starting with some overview of pre 1900 Central bank dealings and goes up to the Bretton-Woods agrement that fixed the dollar to gold and other curriences to the dollar. Especially interesting is the German hyper-inflation after WW I which was partially, if not wholly, self-inflicted by Germany in an attempt to forestall onerous reparations payment. But during this same period Germany also borrowed money from the U.S. to build municipal swimming pools. It would seem that Germany inflicted sever damage on its own economy to avoid reparations payment. This failure to pay by Germany led, in 1923, to the French invasion and military takeover of the Ruhr valley: Germany's industrial heartland. Lords of Finance also covers the tabloid side of finance. Joseph Caillaux, was a radical who had suggested an income tax be adopted in France. Le Figaro, a conservative newspaper, then published the love letters that Joseph Caillaux had written to a former mistress. Madame Caillaux, his wife, was upset and purchased a gun. She went to the offices of Le Figaro and waited two hours for the editor to come out. She said to him, "You know why I'm here", and shot him dead. She was put on trial, but an all-male jury found her not-guilty as it was a crime of passion. Monsieur Caillaux had his own problems and was convicted of financial irregularities. When he returned to the Ministry of Finance, "an American newsmagazine reported that it was as if Benedict Arnold, instead of being executed, had been barred from Philadelphia, exiled to the country, then pardoned, and appointed secretary or war. " I had first started reading "Golden Fetters: the Gold Standard and the Great Depression" which covers roughly the same ground as Lords of Finance. But Golden Fetters is more technical and a bit over my head (I have no formal economics training) but very informative. It has incisive analyses of parliamentary vs. US style two party democracy, and looks at the political polarization that occurred in Germany and Japan over who should pay taxes (sound familiar?). This gridlock helped destroy those economies (think Tea Party blocking the repayment of national debt). That led to death squads and right wing takeovers. The military put people back to work: building armaments. In Germany they made lots of guns but butter and domestic needs were hard to come by. About a third of the way through I started reading "Lords of Finance". Lords of Finance covers pretty much the same ground as Golden Fetters but in less technical terms and less depth. Golden Fetters gives detailed accounts of Gold reserves, balance of payments, foreign currency reserves etc. buttressed by pages of charts graphs and tables of same for every major country in Europe and North and South America. I just skipped the tables. Lords of Finance gives a clear picture of the economic forces at work and the theories behind them plus details about the people who controlled the world's economies. Both books agree that the Gold Standard is a strait-jacket that is fine in normal times, but when things get dicey (WW I, WW II, Great Depression, recession of 2008) it proves fatal. That is why the world's economies were forced off the gold standard over and over again. When countries tried to return they paid a high price in fewer exports and rising unemployment. The Gold Standard constrains the money supply and hence economic growth. Bankers love it as it discourages inflation and encourages deflation. Think, do you want to pay back your mortgage in dollars worth more or less than the ones you borrowed. Inflation: good for debtors, bad for bankers; deflation good for bankers and savers, bad for debtors. Deflation: prices go down (good for savers), exports are hurt, and unemployment goes up. Winston Churchill called returning to the gold standard, "the biggest blunder in his life." He blamed it on the bad advice that he had received from the Governor of the bank of England (Norman) and by the experts of the Treasury who called the gold standard "knave-proof. It could not be rigged for political reasons." It would prevent Britain from "Living in a fool's paradise of false prosperity." Learning from this Churchill, during WW II, would trust his gut and let the military "experts" be dammed. History repeats itself, Oh boy does it. In 1931 the US government could have stopped the first of a string of bank failures by injecting thirty-two million dollars into the Bank of the United States (no government affiliation). In 2008 thirty billion dollars in guarantees would have saved Lehman Bros. For want of a nail a shoe was lost... Good books: The End of Wall Street (highly recommended) - a footnoted blow-by-blow of the crises of 2008; Thirteen Bankers (also highly recommended)- history of U.S. banking from roughly 1900 to 2009. Golden Fetters: the Gold Standard and the Great Depression 1919-1939 (rather technical): A monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman (very technical and way over my head); and of course, Lords of Finance (a must).

How did the world plunge into the financial crisis of 1929-1933 and are we likely to follow that dismal path today? To probe this question, Liaquat Ahmaed, a professional investment manager, has written an absolutely absorbing economic history. He focuses on the principal players ("The Lords of Finance") in the financial world of the 1920's and 1930's, the central bankers of the United States, Britain, France and Germany. They were regarded at the time as members of the world's most exclusive club. Forgotten men today (and all were men,) Montagu Norman (the U.K.), Benjamin Strong (the U.S.), Hjalmar Schacht (Germany) and Emile Moreau (France) struggled with how to deal with the enormous reparation payments due from Germany under The Versailles Treaty, the likewise huge war debts owned by the victorious powers to the United States, and when to return to the gold standard, which had been abandoned during the war. These financial titans were "the best and the brightest" of their times and they made error after error in dealing with these problems. As Ahmaed writes, they were a "group of men who understood none of this [the Crash of 1929], whose ideas about the economy were at best outmoded and at worst plain wrong." Germany could never realistically repay its reparations debt. Similarly, Britain and France could never pay back the U.S. for money borrowed during the war. (Of all the allied powers, only Finland finally paid of its World War One debt.) Returning to the gold standard was a huge mistake. Among economists, only Britain's Maynard Keynes realized that the gold standard would hamstring economic growth. (Of course Keynes also realized the futility of reparation payments in his famous book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace.) When the financial crisis struck, none of the central banks adequately played the role of "lender of last resort." While under Roosevelt the Federal Reserve was reformed and the U.S. government took an activist role in the economy, it was a case of too little, too late. By focusing on the lives of these key bankers, each of who was idiosyncratic, Mr. Ahmaed has produced a fascinating volume, full of interesting personalities (Bernard Barauch, Winston Churchill, Herbert Hoover and Dean Acheson, to name a few). Ahmaed speculates that had Benjamin Strong (head of the New York Fed) not died in 1928, there might have been a figure strong enough to pull together the central bankers for a concerted attack on the financial crisis. (It is also scary to consider that our central bankers today are "the best and the brightest" and may also be making terrible but different mistakes, blinded as they are by the orthodoxy of today's economic thinking.) Ahmaed writes with grace and style. It is a wonderful achievement for a man who apparently is new to the writing of history. He also explains the mysteries of international finance, gold reserves and currency fluctuations in terms anybody can grasp. For an understanding of the financial climate that led to The Great Depression, and for pure entertainment, The Lords of Finance is highly recommended.

I am a 20th-century history buff with some interest in financial matters, so this book really kept my attention. The author gets into only a little bit of financial theory, and does a good job of explaining it well enough for the layman like me to follow along and appreciate the ramifications of the decisions that were made by the heads of the major national banks in the time from World War I to the depression and the days of FDR. Really helps the reader understand more about the reasons the Nazis were able to make such headway in German elections in the 1930's. Also reveals what a quandary President Hoover was in during most of his term, receiving contradictory advice from different sources and always under pressure to do something, but being mostly paralyzed by indecision. The author moves on to the early days of FDR's first term, with all the new programs he introduced (and points out that most of them didn't work). I like the inclusion of personal details for the various characters, even those only peripherally involved, which makes them seem all the more human as they struggled to understand and control the various ups and downs of the between-the-wars economies for four highly-influential nations. The primary focus is on the four heads of the various national banks, and those characters are of course given the most attention. Another major player, although not the head of a national bank, is John Maynard Keynes, presenting his maverick views (later proven correct) of the negative aspects of the gold standard and why nations should (well before any of them actually did) abandon it. Woven into the story are characters as diverse as Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin (who turns out apparently to have understood economics better than Sir Winston), various rogues, murderers, heads of state, con men, and the rich along with the not-so-rich. My only (slightly) negative comment is that the book could have stood a good proofreading. There are some grammatical errors and non-standard usages that really should have been weeded out before publication, but the reader can step past them with little trouble. Overall a recommended read for anyone interested in why the world was turned upside down in the 1930's, and novices (like me) will find it a good primer on why the Federal Reserve does the things it does in modern times.

I've been interested in the history of the first half of the 20th century and found this a well written and very readable account of that period from a central banker's perspective. Its starts out with the introduction of four of the main players of the book,the heads of the central banks of the leading powers of that time,France,Germany,Great Britain,and the United States. Well done portraits of each those bankers as the point of view switches back and forth so that by books end they feel like well known figures. Each was gifted, brilliant,driven and seemingly honorable and each was quite different,none was by any means the gray bland money counter stereotype popular in the media. All had powerful positions with the job of overseeing the value of our money and smoothing over financial crisis. In the end they all failed. It is only a small exaggeration to say that to bankers of that time the gold standard which currency values were tied to was little short of their god. This is an account of how that god turned on them through human mismanagement and ill intentions as they held to that standard thru a ruinous WW I's debt financing that created an imbalance that was not resolved in the war's aftermath. This eventually brought about the conditions for WW II. Gold became an albatross around the neck of the world's economies every step of that path as those bankers held to it tenaciously. The phrase "blind faith" comes to mind. If there was a person that was able to see beyond the group think of the era it was John Maynard Keynes,perhaps the finest economic mind of his time. By the time Keynesian monetary policy became the new group think it was too late and WW II was a done deal. Note:Very roughly Keynesian dogma says that in times of recession the government pumps money into the economy lowering interest rates, in boom times when things such as stock market speculation are getting too wild the government takes money out of the economy raising interest rates. The money added and subtracted by the government can be backed by other financial instruments or nothing beyond the good faith of the issuer(its OK to smile here). In contrast a gold standard ties money's value to the actual amount of physical gold in existence and more specifically to gold in the possession of the issuer. This makes for a more stabile society whereas to date Keynesian economics seems to have allowed for a wider sharing of prosperity. The author makes a strong case on the fallibility of relying on gold to 'auto regulate' the financial system whereas his argument for the superiority of Keynesian policies is not as convincing. In the final analysis they are both just systems. Both the gold standard and Keynesian system are capable of being gamed or succumbing to mistakes by the bankers behind them. And in the long run those bankers remain more important than the system(IMHO). A good man in a mediocre system seems preferable to an incompetent in a superb system. The book hits the correct amount of detail with in depth portraits of each of the players drawn with compassion so they become flesh and blood not the dry as dust personages that you would think most bankers would be. Combined with the world changing drama of those times this makes an exciting read(good history does that to me). Skilled craftsmanship by the author makes history that formed the world we live in engaging and accessible to the average well informed person. P.S. Having found the history of the era depicted in Lords of Finance fascinating I have been carrying on. I just finished A Rabble of Dead Money: The Great Crash and the Global Depression: 1929-1939 and found that while it had limited coverage of the background detail of major financial institutions leading up to the Great Depression it excelled in capturing the spirit of the times. I'm reading Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States) next. It looks promising for coverage of the 1920's and 30's. If anyone has a recommendation for well done history of that era please leave a comment

I've read through the other reviews and, for the most part, agree with those who rate this book highly. I won't reiterate those good comments. I would like to bring the book, yes primarily about the period 1914 to 1944, into relevance today. First, it is a great historical read essential to consider and understand today for those clamoring to go back to some currency standard pegged to a natural resource, i.e., gold or silver. What is instructive is that nobody could agree on what the rules of that standard were, primarily because each country had its own set of issues to deal with. Solutions to a problem in one country often lead to another problem somewhere else. Second, recalling a general recognition of a bubble in modern times through the term irrational exuberance coined by Fed Chairman Greenspan, page 321 sums up 1928, "There was now general agreement that the United States was faced with a stock market bubble. But the system was greatly divided on how to respond." In modern times, the debate also was about prematurely pricking economic growth for the sake of containing market valuations. Third, pages 323-324 discusses how the control of amount of credit was outside of the banking system. Interesting to read that back before 1929, much like the 1990's and 2000's, "It was these players {US Corporations, British stockholders, European bankers flush with liquidity, even some Oriental potentates}, all of them outside the Fed's control, who were by far the most important factor supporting leveraged positions in the stock market." Today, think Credit Default Swaps and Mortgage Backed Securities instead of brokers loans back then. Indeed history seems to teach us that most bubbles are financed by some sort of excessive credit. Finally, Ahamed's epilogue also brings yester year to the fore. 1929 - 1933 was not just one crisis, but a series of four sequential crisis's that rolled across the world each feeding off the previous crisis. He then shows how similar crisis's occurred starting with Mexico borrowing too heavily in 1994 (Germany 1920's), the emerging markets crisis 1997-98 (European financial crisis 1931), the bubble leading to the tech crash in 2000 (US 1929), and the global financial crisis in 2007 (bank panics 1931 - 1933). He admits the analogy may not be exact, however this time around there was a decent interval between crisis that did not exist back then as well as a series of misjudgments back then that seemed to not exist more recently. Overall, an informative read. Two other related works that provide a broader background for a deeper understanding of the era, so one may learn more about today and more importantly how we got here, include: The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath: The Past and Future of American Affluence by Robert J. Samuelson A very good work for a deeper appreciation of the development of money: The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson For a read about perhaps why crisis may be okay after all ... Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great For The Economy by Daniel Gross Wealth Odyssey: The Essential Road Map For Your Financial Journey Where Is It You Are Really Trying To Go With Money?

This is a fascinating look at the personalities and beliefs of the top central bankers of the US, Britain, France, and Germany from before World War I through the Great Crash and the Great Depression beyond. The personalities shaped the beliefs upon which these bankers acted and more importantly the huge blind spots in their thinking that caused these men to be unable to master the complexities and fundamentals of the Great Depression. Many of their erroneous beliefs have re-surfaced in the modern Republican party's rants against the stimulus and its primitive need to go back to "the ol' time religion" of budget balancing in the face of depressed demand. So the morality tale is hugely relevant to today's economic debate. The voice of reason out in the wilderness to this tale is that of John Maynard Keynes, who by the end of the book has risen to worldwide preeminence and is a major architect of the worldwide prosperity that followed World War II, the prosperity from which we have all enormously benefitted. A profile of Keynes early in the book describes his position as one of the most influential figures in the British Treasury during and after World War I. There is a fascinating summary of his thinking: "As the war dragged on, he himself became increasingly disillusioned with its terrible waste, the relentless loss of lives, the refusal of the politicians to contemplate a negotiated settlement, and the steady erosion of Britain's financial standing." I am utterly fascinated by the wisdom of the Western leaders throwing away the opportunity to negotiate a settlement with Germany in 1916 or 1917 or even early 1918. Keynes made a hugely wise observation about one of history's great missed opportunities. A negotiated peace would have meant that a new equilibrium could have been established. Kaiser's Germany was not Hitler's Germany. A lot of lost lives could have been saved. The Second World War could have been avoided because its underlying driving forces would simply have not been present. That is because World War II did not become an inevitability at Munich in 1938 but rather it became an inevitability in 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference with its Treaty of Versailles. Keynes miraculously prophesied the coming of the Second World War in his book "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," which came out in November 1919 while delivering acidic portraits of the Allied leaders in 1919 that continue to sting to this day.I went and read the last two chapters of "The Economic Consequences" and I recommend doing this (starting at the beginning of the book gets into some very tedious economic history)for the memorable writing and prophetic warnings made). This book complements Robert Skildelsky's biography of Keynes acidic portraits of the Allied leaders meeing in Paris in 1919. All three books illuminate the current Euro-Zone monetary crisis where parochial politics meets the overwhelming need to develop European-wide solutions--now as it was then.

This did not turn out to be the book I thought I had ordered, but it proved a compelling read nonetheless. I thought I would get a book the explained the "springs and levers" that connected the Wall Street crash to bank failures to the depression. This was not made clear, and in hindsight it Is clear this book is aimed at a reader more knowledgeable in macroeconomic matters than I am. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating book, extremely well written ( if not extremely well proofed) and very approachable even if you don't understand clearly some of the cause/effect relationships it talks about. Essentially it is a history of central banking and the growth of the effects of the Gold Standard during the inter war years, told through the roles played by the 4 chief protagonists, the Governors of the central banks of U.K., Germany, France and the New York Fed. Maynard Keynes features prominently and is shown as a key player in the increasing awareness of the limitations of the gold standard. The story focuses on the struggles of these four Governors in trying to deal with the fallout of the post-war reparations imposed on Germany, and the near-bankruptcy of both the UK and French governments during the depression. The US suffered enormously from the post-crash depression, but I never realised just how much it profited from the Allies from its war loans, to the extent that I can't help suspecting that the US took deliberTe action to accelerate the demise of the British Empire to impose its own hegemony. The French national stereotypes are played out again, both in its negotiations of the Reparations and its refusal to countenance meaningful reductions in the face of evidence that Germany would be unable to pay (consider that in today's terms relative to the size of the German Economy, reparations amounted to $2.4 trillion dollars !). The French position on Brexit negotiations (no discussion on Trade without settlement of the "divorce bill") came to mind several times as I read this book. Anyone looking for a history of the growth of the role and expertise of Central Banks will find this a very useful read. Equally, it presents a very readable history of the main characters, especially the governor of the Central Banks and New York Fed, but also of the roles of FDR, Herbert Hoover and Winston Churchill, as well as John Maynard Keynes in this seminal period in Western economic history. A great read.

Sets out clearly and methodically the errors of judgment and lack of understanding that led to the Great Depression of the 1930's. One can't teach an old dog new tricks, and these four heads of their countries' money supply were so wedded to the orthodoxy of the past that they could not see the harm they were doing. Definitely a keeper.

Dieses Buch lässt sich sehr leicht und schnell lesen, fast wie einen Roman. Der Hauptfocus ist auf die 4 Gentlemen auf dem Cover, diejenigen die Angeblich die Welt zu Great Depression geführt haben. In Wirklichkeit waren diese 4 "Negative Figuren" durchaus kompetente Personen, die aber ein Großen Fehler gemacht haben: Zu glauben das Stabilität und Berechenbarkeit das allerwichtigste für die Wirtschaft sei. Ich hoffe, dass dieses Buch nützlich sein kann, für diejenigen die heutzutage auch um jeden Preis dem "Harten Kurs" verteidigen. Ist aber auf jeden Fall nützlich, für all diejenigen, die einfach wissen wollen, was damals passiert ist und wie man zu "Great Depression" kam.

Good for anyone who wants to better understand how the world ended up in the great depression.

Excellent ouvrage, assez facilement lisible, même sans compétence particulière en ce domaine. Centré sur les gouverneurs de banques centrales française, anglaise, allemande et américaine, le livre donne un éclairage remarquable sur l'environnement économique et financier de cette période, dans le monde et particulièrement en Allemagne, débouchant sur la crise des années 30 et la montée du nazisme. L'auteur attribue des bons et des mauvais points à chacun des 4 gouverneurs. Sont-ils mérités ? D'autres gouverneurs auraient-ils pu éviter l'arrivée de ces drames ? Le rôle des politiques n'a-t-il pas été au moins aussi important ? A lire maintenant, en anglais ou en français, pour prendre du recul sur la situation actuelle.