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With penetrating insight for today, this vital
history of the world economic collapse of
the last 1920s presents unforgettable portraits
of the four men whose personal and professional
actions as heads of their respective central
banks changed the course of the 20th century.
Is is commonly believed that the Great
Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence
of events beyond any one person’s or government’s
control. In fact, as author Liaquat
Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions taken by a
small number of central bankers that were the primary
cause of the economic meltdown, the effects
of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated
for decades.
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
Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York, a deeply wounded and overburdened
man.
After World War One, these central bankers
attempted to reconstruct the world of international
finance. Despite all their differences, they were
united by a common fear—and a common vision—
that the solution was to turn back the clock and
return the world to the gold standard.
For a brief period in the mid-1920s, they
appeared to have succeeded. But beneath the
veneer of boomtown prosperity, cracks began to
appear in the financial systems. . . .
Lords of Finance is a potent reminder that the
decisions of a few central bankers can have terrible
human consequences when their gambles fail.
Hardback, dustjacket, 564 pages, #LF
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