Book Details
Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0143116800
ISBN-13: 978-0143116806
Product Dimensions: 1.3 x 5.2 x 8 inches
Book Description
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.
About the Authors
Liaquat Ahamed
Ahamed has worked at the World Bank in Washington D.C., where he headed the bank’s investment division, and at the New York-based partnership of Fischer, Francis Trees and Watts, a fixed-income business and subsidiary of BNP Paribas, where he served as Chief Investment Officer and from 2001-2004 as Chief Executive. From October 2007 he has been a director of Aspen Insurance Holdings and in addition advises several hedge funds, including Rock Creek Group and The Rohatyn Group. He is a member of Board of Trustees at the Brookings Institution and is involved with the New America Foundation.
He was born in Kenya, to where his grandfather had migrated from Gujarat, via Zanzibar, in the late 19th century.He was educated at Rugby School in England, at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at Harvard University.
Through his production company, Red Wine Pictures, Ahamed was a producer on the 2006 film The Situation, set in Iraq.
Ahamed’s wife Meena is active with Médecins Sans Frontières and other charitable enterprises. His son-in-law is actor Jonathan Tucker.
