Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
Title: Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
Author(s): Liaquat Ahamed
Year: 2009
Publisher: Windmill Books
ISBN: 978-1-44069-796-8
Description:
A Pulitzer Prize–winning financial history that chronicles the four central bankers—Benjamin Strong (US), Montagu Norman (UK), Émile Moreau (France), and Hjalmar Schacht (Germany)—who dominated global finance between World War I and the Great Depression.
Ahamed argues that their rigid commitment to the gold standard and policy missteps turned a post‑war recession into the worst economic catastrophe of the 20th century, with lasting consequences for the world economy and the lead‑up to World War II. The book blends biography, economic analysis, and narrative history to show how personal rivalries and institutional power shaped the interwar financial order
