In June 2012, Ahamed himself drew a similar parallel in a Financial Times column, saying that 'during the past few months, as the crisis in Europe has spiralled out of control', he had 'begun to fear that the world might in fact be repeating some of th same errors' as those made in the 1920s and 1930s. The main theme of the book is the role played by the central bankers' insistence to adhere to the gold standard 'even in the face of total catastrophe'. John Maynard Keynes, a British well-known economist of the time appears on many occasions in the book in a role opposing the central bankers. of the New York Federal Reserve, Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, Émile Moreau of the Banque de France, and Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank. It follows the life and actions of the then chiefs of the central banks: Benjamin Strong Jr. The book narrates the events preceding the Black Tuesday stock market crash of 1929 and the disastrous response of the world's major central banks. It is published by Penguin Books (USA) Inc. It was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. For 2009 it was recognized as one of Time magazine's 'Best Books of the Year', New York Times 'Best Books of the Year' and 's 'Best Books of the Year'. The book was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for History, the 2010 Spear's Book Award (Financial History Book of the Year), the 2010 Arthur Ross Book Award Gold Medal, the 2009 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. Lords of Finance Īhamed is the author of Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World (2009). Through his production company, Red Wine Pictures, Ahamed was a producer on the 2006 film The Situation, set in Iraq. He is a member of Board of Trustees at the Brookings Institution and is involved with the New America Foundation. From October 2007 he has been a director of Aspen Insurance Holdings and in addition advises several hedge funds, including Rock Creek Group and The Rohatyn Group. Īhamed has worked at the World Bank in Washington D.C., where he headed the bank's investment division, and at the New York-based partnership of Fischer, Francis Trees and Watts, a fixed-income business and subsidiary of BNP Paribas, where he served as Chief Investment Officer and from 2001–2004 as Chief Executive. He was educated at Rugby School in England, at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at Harvard University.

Liaquat Ahamed was born in Kenya, where his grandfather had emigrated to from Gujarat by way of Zanzibar in the late 19th century. Liaquat Ahamed (born 14 November 1952 in Kenya) is an American author.

Lords of finance book