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Liaquat Ahamed

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World Paperback – Illustrated, December 29, 2009

by Liaquat Ahamed (Author)

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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

“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 (starred)

“There is terrific prescience to be found in [Lords of Finance’s] portrait of times past . . . [A] writer of great verve and erudition, [Ahamed] easily connects the dots between the economic crises that rocked the world during the years his book covers and the fiscal emergencies that beset us today." —The New York Times

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 we continue to grapple with economic turmoil, 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.

Print length

576 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Books
Publication date

December 29, 2009
Dimensions

5.5 x 1.2 x 8.4 inches
ISBN-10

0143116800
ISBN-13

978-0143116806
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A magisterial work . . . As you learn how the world spiraled into depression . . . you can’t help thinking about the economic crisis we’re living through now.” —The New York Times Book Review

“The rich and charming story of the end of the world.” —Time

“Lords of Finance is highly readable . . . That it should appear now, as history threatens to repeat itself, compounds its appeal.” —Niall Ferguson, Financial Times

“There is terrific prescience to be found in [Lords of Finance’s] portrait of times past . . . [A] writer of great verve and erudition, [Ahamed] easily connects the dots between the economic crises that rocked the world during the years his book covers and the fiscal emergencies that beset us today. He does this winningly enough to make his book about an international monetary horror story seem like a labor of love . . . 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.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“This absorbing study of the first collective of central bankers is provocative, not least because it is still relevant.” —The Economist

“This is narrative history at its most vivid, an epic portrait of how the predecessors of Ben Bernanke, Jean-Claude Trichet and Mervyn King helped shove economies into the abyss in 1929 . . . His reportorial style has the Barbara Tuchman touch. Learned yet unpretentious, he dips into diaries, letters and cables to pull out evocative vignettes . . . Central bankers, [Ahamed] says, can resemble Sisyphus in Greek mythology—condemned to roll a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll down again. Like Alan Greenspan, the four men described here saw their apparent successes melt into failure.” —Bloomberg News

“The parallels evidenced by Ahamed between state of the world financial system then and now add to the fascination of this remarkable achievement in history, biography and analysis.” —Fort Worth Star Telegram

“An outstanding book . . . [Ahamed] found a fascinating frame for relating global economic history from the beginning of World War I until the dying days of World War II.” —The Houston Chronicle

“[Ahamed’s] protagonists’ high-wire efforts to stave off national bankruptcies furnish Ahamed with plenty of drama to highlight his engrossing analysis of the complexities of monetary policy.” —Publishers Weekly

“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 (starred)

“Books grounded in history sometimes offer an eerie resonance for contemporary readers. Rarely has that statement seemed truer than with Lords of Finance.” —Steve Weinberger, Dallas Morning News

“[A] wonderful new history” —Newsweek

About the Author

Liaquat Ahamed has been a professional investment manager for 25 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.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Reprint edition (December 29, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 576 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143116800
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143116806
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #31,151 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #11 in Business Ethics (Books)
- #12 in Banks & Banking (Books)
- #43 in Economic History (Books)

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4.6 1,630 ratings

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Liaquat Ahamed

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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.

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Mike the K

Excellent book - "Golden Fetters" lite with personalty

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 12, 2013

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Lords Of Finance is an excellent book for the average person who wants to understand monetary history from about 1900-1945, the Gold Standard's effect on world economies, and how economic disruption caused by political polarization and mismanagement helped pave the way for Hitler, the Japanese military junta and thereby World War II. (The Japanese history is not mentioned in the Lords of finance, but is covered by the book "Golden Fetters".) Lords of Finance makes the story interesting by detailing the careers and influence of the persons most involved with managing the world's economy at that time: Montagu Norman - Bank of England, Winston Churchill British Minster of the Exchequer (US=Treasury Secretary); Benjamin Strong, President of the New York Federal Reserve; Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank (later indicted war criminal - found not guilty); Emil Moreau of the Banque de France and John Maynard Keynes the "greatest economist of his generation". These, along with some other colorful characters are the Lords of Finance.

Lords of Finance covers International finances with starting with some overview of pre 1900 Central bank dealings and goes up to the Bretton-Woods agrement that fixed the dollar to gold and other curriences to the dollar. Especially interesting is the German hyper-inflation after WW I which was partially, if not wholly, self-inflicted by Germany in an attempt to forestall onerous reparations payment. But during this same period Germany also borrowed money from the U.S. to build municipal swimming pools. It would seem that Germany inflicted sever damage on its own economy to avoid reparations payment. This failure to pay by Germany led, in 1923, to the French invasion and military takeover of the Ruhr valley: Germany's industrial heartland.

Lords of Finance also covers the tabloid side of finance. Joseph Caillaux, was a radical who had suggested an income tax be adopted in France. Le Figaro, a conservative newspaper, then published the love letters that Joseph Caillaux had written to a former mistress. Madame Caillaux, his wife, was upset and purchased a gun. She went to the offices of Le Figaro and waited two hours for the editor to come out. She said to him, "You know why I'm here", and shot him dead. She was put on trial, but an all-male jury found her not-guilty as it was a crime of passion. Monsieur Caillaux had his own problems and was convicted of financial irregularities. When he returned to the Ministry of Finance, "an American newsmagazine reported that it was as if Benedict Arnold, instead of being executed, had been barred from Philadelphia, exiled to the country, then pardoned, and appointed secretary or war. "

I had first started reading "Golden Fetters: the Gold Standard and the Great Depression" which covers roughly the same ground as Lords of Finance. But Golden Fetters is more technical and a bit over my head (I have no formal economics training) but very informative. It has incisive analyses of parliamentary vs. US style two party democracy, and looks at the political polarization that occurred in Germany and Japan over who should pay taxes (sound familiar?). This gridlock helped destroy those economies (think Tea Party blocking the repayment of national debt). That led to death squads and right wing takeovers. The military put people back to work: building armaments. In Germany they made lots of guns but butter and domestic needs were hard to come by. About a third of the way through I started reading "Lords of Finance".
Lords of Finance covers pretty much the same ground as Golden Fetters but in less technical terms and less depth. Golden Fetters gives detailed accounts of Gold reserves, balance of payments, foreign currency reserves etc. buttressed by pages of charts graphs and tables of same for every major country in Europe and North and South America. I just skipped the tables. Lords of Finance gives a clear picture of the economic forces at work and the theories behind them plus details about the people who controlled the world's economies.

Both books agree that the Gold Standard is a strait-jacket that is fine in normal times, but when things get dicey (WW I, WW II, Great Depression, recession of 2008) it proves fatal. That is why the world's economies were forced off the gold standard over and over again. When countries tried to return they paid a high price in fewer exports and rising unemployment. The Gold Standard constrains the money supply and hence economic growth. Bankers love it as it discourages inflation and encourages deflation. Think, do you want to pay back your mortgage in dollars worth more or less than the ones you borrowed. Inflation: good for debtors, bad for bankers; deflation good for bankers and savers, bad for debtors. Deflation: prices go down (good for savers), exports are hurt, and unemployment goes up. Winston Churchill called returning to the gold standard, "the biggest blunder in his life." He blamed it on the bad advice that he had received from the Governor of the bank of England (Norman) and by the experts of the Treasury who called the gold standard "knave-proof. It could not be rigged for political reasons." It would prevent Britain from "Living in a fool's paradise of false prosperity." Learning from this Churchill, during WW II, would trust his gut and let the military "experts" be dammed.

History repeats itself, Oh boy does it. In 1931 the US government could have stopped the first of a string of bank failures by injecting thirty-two million dollars into the Bank of the United States (no government affiliation). In 2008 thirty billion dollars in guarantees would have saved Lehman Bros. For want of a nail a shoe was lost...

Good books: The End of Wall Street (highly recommended) - a footnoted blow-by-blow of the crises of 2008; Thirteen Bankers (also highly recommended)- history of U.S. banking from roughly 1900 to 2009. Golden Fetters: the Gold Standard and the Great Depression 1919-1939 (rather technical): A monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman (very technical and way over my head); and of course, Lords of Finance (a must).

38 people found this helpful

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John S. Reid

A fascinating (but incomplete) account of a financial train wreck.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 11, 2020

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With almost 470 Amazon reviews (as of the time of this writing), what’s left to add? Presumably by this point the reader of this review knows what this book is about – i.e., how the actions of leaders of the central banks of the U.S., Britain, Germany and France ostensibly brought about the Great Depression of the 1930’s. (But that actually sells the narrative short – read more below.)

This book reads like a fascinating novel – but with real-life biographies, and real history, as the background. Ahamed writes for the masses – he does not assume a financial or economic background on the part of the reader. This book is so exceptionally well written that it becomes a page-turner – you just can’t wait to see what happens next! Commendably, the author does not suggest a conspiracy theory among, or incompetence on the part of, the main actors. As indicated below, they were merely further casualties of WWI. Each of the central banks (U.S. Britain, Germany and France) pursued different paths to recovery following the war, and none of them found the right answer. This is probably the result of three main problems: (i) the lack of coordination by the Central Banks in developing a global policy for economic recovery following the war; (ii) a failure on the part of Britain to acknowledge that the global economic landscape had been fundamentally altered by the war; and (iii) a failure on the part of the central actors to understand what was going on. As Maynard Keynes said in 1930 (pg. 374), “We have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand.”

While not a course book on international finance, the author does provide enough details to educate the reader about some of the basics (e.g., the gold standard, international lending, devaluation of currency, and international transfers of capital).

As for my 4-star rating, and the title of this review (about the narrative being incomplete), I recommend reading the following in order to gain a broader perspective: “Hidden History” (Docherty and Macgregor), which suggests (with considerable convincing evidence) that the British manipulated France and Russia into war with Germany in 1914 in order to remove Germany as an economic competitor to Britain. My guess is that the architects behind this scheme (Lord Alfred Milner, in particular) had no clue as to what the economic consequences of war would be – they just had a narrow-focused goal of removing a commercial competitor. Thus, the central characters of “Lords of Finance” were probably just historical casualties of those with deeper, and darker, long term motives. Britain sowed the wind leading up to WWI, and the world reaped the whirlwind afterwards (with Britain refusing to acknowledge that there was, in fact, a whirlwind, trying vainly to reestablish their place of prominence in world finance by going back to an unrealistic pre-war gold-based exchange rate). All of the financial machinations (on the part of all parties) to rebuild the world economy after WWI failed to appreciate one fundamental concept – i.e., at some point creditors stop providing credit when they suspect that they might not be able to get repaid. Once credit stops, the economy flops. This holds true unless the creditors have a source they can tap to continue their bad lending practices – see next paragraph.

I also gave this book a 4-star review because the author never asks – or answers- the fundamental question, “who eventually pays when central banks bail out other banks and nations who have made poor decisions?” The answer is “individual investors and savers.” Case in point: in 2007 an IRA or 401K worth $1 million likely took a 40% hit – i.e., a $400,000 “tax”. Multiply that by say three million such accounts, and suddenly you have $1.2 trillion gone from people’s retirement accounts. Where did all of that wealth go? Answer: to pay for loans by the Fed to bail out Greece, Spain, and bad real estate loans in the U.S. It was basically just a redistribution of wealth – socialism conducted under the guise of “central banking”. Read “The Creature from Jekyll Island” (regarding the establishment, and workings, of the U.S. Federal Reserve system) and you will have any eye-opening education on the truth behind “central banking”.

109 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

A Financial Policy Approach to World Affairs

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 25, 2023

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This book provided a perspective about the financial instigators of an era not often considered-and the decades of strife and political upheaval as a result of those forces.

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Top reviews from other countries

LuannBorges

Most interesting financial boom I’ve read so far

Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on April 15, 2019

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Great book...gives us a chance to understand all the path to the 29 crisis, passing through the First World War and shaping the way that the most important financial heads think back then.

Andrew

An education!

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on November 22, 2019

Verified Purchase

The best kind of history. Entertaining. Insightful. Educational.
Feels like I’ve done a course in economics. It makes a powerful case against old gold standard economics. I’m sure there’s another side to the story, as it’s very pro Keynesian - I will have to try to find something from the other side of the fence.

ダニエル

Very good

Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on November 4, 2018

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Very well detailed. Nice reading.
A recommended one.

John Timothy Moore

A comprehensive picture of what caused the Depression

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on September 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

As a non economist I found ‘Lords of Finance’ fairly easy to read and quite understandable. The people involved were ignorant and ego driven. Cared more about the game rather than the plight of the common people. Well researched and well written! Good job!

One person found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Brilliantly weaves history and economics.

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on December 8, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is a book you enjoy, yet also finish having learned a lot. The history, the economics - it traces a clear trail between the end of the first world war, the great depression and the start of the second world war.

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