"Exceptional . . . Deeply researched and elegantly written . . . As
a description of the politics and pressures under which modern
independent central banking has to operate, the book is
incomparable." -Financial Times The definitive biography of the
most important economic statesman of our time, from the bestselling
author of The Power Law and More Money Than God Sebastian Mallaby's
magisterial biography of Alan Greenspan, the product of over five
years of research based on untrammeled access to his subject and
his closest professional and personal intimates, brings into vivid
focus the mysterious point where the government and the economy
meet. To understand Greenspan's story is to see the economic and
political landscape of our time-and the presidency from Reagan to
George W. Bush-in a whole new light. As the most influential
economic statesman of his age, Greenspan spent a lifetime grappling
with a momentous shift: the transformation of finance from the
fixed and regulated system of the post-war era to the free-for-all
of the past quarter century. The story of Greenspan is also the
story of the making of modern finance, for good and for ill.
Greenspan's life is a quintessential American success story: raised
by a single mother in the Jewish emigre community of Washington
Heights, he was a math prodigy who found a niche as a
stats-crunching consultant. A master at explaining the economic
weather to captains of industry, he translated that skill into
advising Richard Nixon in his 1968 campaign. This led to a perch on
the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and then to a
dazzling array of business and government roles, from which the
path to the Fed was relatively clear. A fire-breathing libertarian
and disciple of Ayn Rand in his youth who once called the Fed's
creation a historic mistake, Mallaby shows how Greenspan reinvented
himself as a pragmatist once in power. In his analysis, and in his
core mission of keeping inflation in check, he was a maestro
indeed, and hailed as such. At his retirement in 2006, he was
lauded as the age's necessary man, the veritable God in the
machine, the global economy's avatar. His memoirs sold for record
sums to publishers around the world. But then came 2008. Mallaby's
story lands with both feet on the great crash which did so much to
damage Alan Greenspan's reputation. Mallaby argues that the
conventional wisdom is off base: Greenspan wasn't a naive ideologue
who believed greater regulation was unnecessary. He had pressed for
greater regulation of some key areas of finance over the years, and
had gotten nowhere. To argue that he didn't know the risks in
irrational markets is to miss the point. He knew more than almost
anyone; the question is why he didn't act, and whether anyone else
could or would have. A close reading of Greenspan's life provides
fascinating answers to these questions, answers whose lessons we
would do well to heed. Because perhaps Mallaby's greatest lesson is
that economic statesmanship, like political statesmanship, is the
art of the possible. The Man Who Knew is a searching reckoning with
what exactly comprised the art, and the possible, in the career of
Alan Greenspan.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
