Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize

"A magisterial work...You can't help thinking about the economic crisis we're living through now." --The New York Times Book Review

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 that economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades. As yet another period of economic turmoil makes headlines today, Lords of Finance is a potent reminder of the enormous impact that the decisions of central bankers can have, their fallibility, and the terrible human consequences that can result when they are wrong.

• The Mr. X Interviews: Volume 1: World Views from a Fictional US Sovereign Creditor
• Other People's Money: The Real Business of Finance
• Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves
• A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World
• The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition
• America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve
• Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises
• Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
• The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire
• The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization