The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World

1873

Over the course of the 1850s and 1860s, during the first era of globalisation, the world experienced an unprecedented economic boom. Fuelling this expansion was an explosion in borrowing through the global bond market, which provided financing for the century’s most costly and transformative innovation: the railroad. The boom predictably swelled into a series of bubbles that burst simultaneously in the early 1870s, cascading from one country to the next across the globe. Through the eyes of a cast that includes Karl Marx, Mark Twain and the Rothschild family, Liaquat Ahamed weaves a compelling narrative of build-up, collapse and world-changing aftermath.

Liaquat Ahamed

'Highly readable... [Ahamed] cannot have foreseen how timely his book would be.

'Fascinating... a brisk, original, incisive and entertaining account of a crucial time in the world's economic history that continues to affect us all today. Anyone who wants to understand the origins of the economic world we live in would do well to read this book'

One of those rare books - authoritative, readable and relevant - that puts the "story" back into history... a spellbinding, richly human [and] cinematic narrative.

Absorbing [and] provocative, not least because it is still relevant.

'Superlative... a subject of real fascination... Lords of Finance has the flair and wisdom to find a wide readership on the strength of its main ideas.'

1929, The Great Depression, and the Bankers who Broke the World

THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE. 
 
The current financial crisis has only one parallel: the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and subsequent Great Depression of the 1930s, which crippled the future of an entire generation and set the stage for the horrors of the Second World War. Yet the economic meltdown could have been avoided, had it not been for the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers. 
 
In Lords of Finance, we meet these men, the four bankers who truly broke the world: the enigmatic Norman Montaguof the bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the NY Federal Reserve, the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbanlk and the xenophobic Emile Moreau of the Banque de France. Their names were lost to history, their lives and actions forgotten, until now. Liaquat Ahamed tells their story in vivid and gripping detail, in a timely and arresting reminder that individuals - their ambitions, limitations and human nature - lie at the very heart of global catastrophe.

Lords of Finance

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Praise for Lords of Finance

'Highly readable... [Ahamed] cannot have foreseen how timely his book would be.

'Fascinating... a brisk, original, incisive and entertaining account of a crucial time in the world's economic history that continues to affect us all today. Anyone who wants to understand t ...

One of those rare books - authoritative, readable and relevant - that puts the "story" back into history... a spellbinding, richly human [and] cinematic narrative.

'Highly readable... [Ahamed] cannot have foreseen how timely his book would be.

'Fascinating... a brisk, original, incisive and entertaining account of a crucial time in the world's economic history that continues to affect us all today. Anyone who wants to understand t ...

One of those rare books - authoritative, readable and relevant - that puts the "story" back into history... a spellbinding, richly human [and] cinematic narrative.

'Highly readable... [Ahamed] cannot have foreseen how timely his book would be.

'Fascinating... a brisk, original, incisive and entertaining account of a crucial time in the world's economic history that continues to affect us all today. Anyone who wants to understand t ...

One of those rare books - authoritative, readable and relevant - that puts the "story" back into history... a spellbinding, richly human [and] cinematic narrative.

Books by Liaquat Ahamed

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