Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World »

Liaquat Ahamed has been a professional investment manager for twenty-five years. He has worked at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and the New York-based partnership of Fischer Francis Trees and Watts, where he served as chief executive. He is currently an adviser to several hedge fund groups, including the Rock Creek Group and the Rohatyn Group, is a director of Aspen Insurance Co., and is on the board of trustees of the Brookings Institution. He has degrees in economics from Harvard and Cambridge universities.

With penetrating insights for today, this vital history of the world economic collapse of the late 1920s offers 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.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

Somehow Mr. Ahamed has been able to peg a many-faceted international economic story to the outsize personalities—one each from the United States, France, Britain and Germany—who made up that rescue team. And he succeeds so well that the potential opacity of his material is easily penetrated. The reader who might not expect to be enthralled by the dangerous mutability of the gold standard, for example, will find it a subject of real fascination. And Mr. Ahamed does a superlative job of explaining the ever-germane way the problems of one shyster, one bank, one treasury or one economy can set off repercussions all around the globe.

Introduction 1

Part 1 The Unexpected Storm August 1914

1 Prologue 19

2 A Strange and Lonely Man 23

3 The Young Wizard 35

4 A Safe Pair of Hands 45

5 L'Inspecteur Des Finances 61

6 Money Generals 73

Part 2 After The Deluge 1919-23

7 Demented Inspirations 99

8 Uncle Shylock 130

9 A Barbarous Relic 155

Part 3 Sowing A New Wind 1923-28

10 A Bridge between Chaos and Hope 179

11 The Dawes Opening 193

12 The Golden Chancellor 217

13 La Bataille 241

14 The First Squalls 270

15 Un Petit Coup De Whisky 291

Part 4 Reaping Another Whirlwind 1928-33

16 Into the Vortex 107

17 Purging the Rottenness 347

18 Magneto Trouble 374

19 A Loose Cannon on The Deck of The World 393

20 Gold Fetters 422

Part 5 Aftermath 1933-44

21 Gold Standard on the Booze 451

22 The Caravans Move on 477

23 Epilogue 497

Acknowledgments 506

Notes 509

Bibliography 533

Index 545