Lords of Finance - Liaquat Ahamed

[compounding]

Just finished reading this one, rushed to see the thread on here with lots of interesting discussion and praise. Only to find...nothing. Kind of surprised there isn't a thread but I imagine there are few of you out there who have read it.

 

Instead of polluting your minds with my book reviewing skills/opinions I will present to you a review from the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/books/review/Nocera-t.html?_r=1&

 

What I will say though, is that I found a huge appreciation for John Maynard Keynes through this book, he actually impressed me immensely. I am interested to hear your thoughts on this book and possibly further book recommendations in the same vein.

 

Thanks.

[oddballstocks]

Great book, read it in 2010 when a lot of people were talking about hyperinflation.  After reading the book I recognized why it wouldn't happen in the US in our current environment.  Although this book led me to read When Money Dies a more of a focused story on part of Lords of Finance.

 

Lords of Finance fills in the gaps of 'why' things happened in the inner war period.  I suspect this isn't taught in school because economics are expected to be too hard for students, so it's all glossed over with easy to digest sound bite history pieces of why things happened the way they did.

[giofranchi]

Yes, I enjoyed this book too. I already had a great esteem for Mr. Keynes as an investor, and the book made me appreciate him even more! :)

 

I would also suggest to read [amazonsearch]The Forgotten Man[/amazonsearch] by Amity Shlaes and [amazonsearch]The Great Depression: A Diary[/amazonsearch] by Benjamin Roth.

 

Gio

 

[petec]

For a counterpoint, I'd recommend Stockman's The Great Deformation.  It's overlong and it's a rant, both of which are irritating, but it made me seriously question the received wisdom (and the Lords of Finance version) about the great depression, it puts what's happening today into the context of long run monetary policy history, and it is stuffed full of interesting facts and figures.

 

Pete