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  • Lords of Finance

  • The Bankers Who Broke the World
  • Written by: Liaquat Ahamed
  • Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
  • Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (56 ratings)

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Lords of Finance

Written by: Liaquat Ahamed
Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
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Publisher's Summary

Pulitzer Prize, History, 2010

It 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 Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made 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 Émile 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, whose facade of energy and drive masked a deeply wounded and overburdened man.

After the First World War, these central bankers attempted to reconstruct the world of international finance. Despite their differences, they were united by a common fear - that the greatest threat to capitalism was inflation - and by 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. The world's currencies were stabilized, and capital began flowing freely across the globe. But beneath the veneer of boomtown prosperity, cracks started to appear in the financial system. The gold standard that all had believed would provide an umbrella of stability proved to be a straitjacket, and the world economy began that terrible downward spiral known as the Great Depression.

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 global nature of financial crises, Lords of Finance is a reminder of the enormous impact that the decisions of central bankers can have, of their fallibility, and of the terrible human consequences that can result when they are wrong.

©2009 Liaquat Ahamed (P)2009 Tantor

What the critics say

"Ahamed cannot have foreseen how timely his book would be..... Lords of Finance is highly readable - enlivened by vivid biographical detail but soundly based on the literature. That it should appear now, as history threatens to repeat itself, compounds its appeal." ( Financial Times)
"Erudite, entertaining macroeconomic history of the lead-up to the Great Depression as seen through the careers of the West's principal bankers....Spellbinding, insightful and, perhaps most important, timely." ( Kirkus Reviews)

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

audiobk didnt get my attention in timely fashion

audio is maybe too long for me as well. also audible return policy is frustrating. if no 100% returns are accepted, but not In app. can't rate performance or story.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic walkthrough in central bank history

Great step by step account of the financial decisions, both good & bad, made a century+ ago which affect us today.

Highly recommended to anybody interested in economics history.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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The people behind finance & their emotions

Great listen. Makes the the Fed & ECB human. Helps us understand how and why the economic system is the way it is today through a timeline walk through of the failure of our past. Provides a potential understanding of options we may explore, and those we will avoid as part of resolving the emerging economic situation.

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