"Lords of Finance --- The Bankers Who Broke the World"

This book of history by Liaquat Ahamed was published almost one year ago but found its way from the local library to my nightstand just a few weeks ago. At first glance the title suggests another tome on recent events but this is the story of the central bankers whose policies either dealt with or shaped the catastrophic economic events from 1914 to the mid-1930's. It's an accessible read that is informative and interesting but not academic in its style.

There is no new information or insight into the basic structure of political, military, and economic events of that period. It's all familiar. The fascinating focus of the book is on the lead central bankers of England, France, Germany, and the United States during this period, their personalities, quirks, financial policies, and actions. John Maynard Keynes is the other central character and all of the major political leaders of the period play their roles. Read as a backdrop to the challenges we face today, the developments of that period seen from a financial perspective are not only interesting but also compelling reading.

The thematic purpose of the book, as announced on the extended title on the cover, is to detail how the decisions of a few central bankers led to the disaster of the global Great Depression, "the direct result of a series of misjudgements by economic policy makers, some made back in the 1920's, others after the first crises set in -- by any measure the most dramatic sequence of collective blunders ever made by financial officials". The first sentence of the closing paragraph states that "the Great Depression was caused by a failure of intellectual will, a lack of understanding about how the economy operated". The last sentence evokes the legacy of Keynes' insights during that period as the reason that the world has avoided another such economic catastrophe.

That kind of bold statement is to some extent at odds with the best that this book has to offer. That is the portraits of these central bankers as human beings, smart ones but with flaws as well, who were facing unprecendented events and dealing with the ever changing tide of political pressures. Participating in a crisis that seems to be random in its outcome is entirely different from analytical hindsight.

This is a fine book but not one that in its overall thrust successfully suggests that we are now in an era of rarified economic intelligence as compared to that of the 1920's and 1930's. If that is supposed to be the point, I didn't get it.