The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath

by Ben S. Bernanke Narrated by Grover Gardner

Overview

A New York Times Bestseller

“A fascinating account of the effort to save the world from another [Great Depression]. . . . Humanity should be grateful.”-Financial Times

In 2006, Ben S. Bernanke was appointed chair of the Federal Reserve, the unexpected apex of a personal journey from small-town South Carolina to prestigious academic appointments and finally public service in Washington's halls of power.

There would be no time to celebrate.

The bursting of a housing bubble in 2007 exposed the hidden vulnerabilities of the global financial system, bringing it to the brink of meltdown. From the implosion of the investment bank Bear Stearns to the unprecedented bailout of insurance giant AIG, efforts to arrest the financial contagion consumed Bernanke and his team at the Fed. Around the clock, they fought the crisis with every tool at their disposal to keep the United States and world economies afloat.

Working with two U.S. presidents, and under fire from a fractious Congress and a public incensed by behavior on Wall Street, the Fed-alongside colleagues in the Treasury Department-successfully stabilized a teetering financial system. With creativity and decisiveness, they prevented an economic collapse of unimaginable scale and went on to craft the unorthodox programs that would help revive the U.S. economy and become the model for other countries.

Rich with detail of the decision-making process in Washington and indelible portraits of the major players, The Courage to Act recounts and explains the worst financial crisis and economic slump in America since the Great Depression, providing an insider's account of the policy response.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Michael Kinsley

…undoubtedly the best account we will ever have of how government and financial institutions dealt with what has come to be known as the Great Recession.

Publishers Weekly

11/02/2015
Central bank officials don't normally star in thrillers, but this memoir of the 2008 financial collapse and the Great Recession by the former chairman of the Federal Reserve provides an exception to that rule. Economist Bernanke recounts how his research into financial panics and the Great Depression prepared him to lead the government's response to the 2007–8 subprime mortgage crisis and the ensuing collapse of banks and credit. As landmark Wall Street companies implode—including Bear Stearns, Lehmann Brothers, AIG, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—Bernanke and his comrades, Vice Chairman Tim Geithner and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, invent new ways to shore them up, arm-twist recalcitrant executives, and flood the economy with loans to stymie panic. The result, he writes, was "a new era of monetary policy activism" that drew intense fire from grandstanding populists. Along the way he unveils the workings of the secretive Fed, from internal wranglings over interest rates to the minute parsings of public statements for jittery markets ("Should I say that additional interest rate cuts ‘may be necessary' or ‘may well be necessary'?"). Written in clear, accessible prose, Bernanke's memoir demystifies central banking and high finance with admirable lucidity; it makes an indispensable guide to the 2008 upheaval and the controversial measures that quelled it. Photos. (Oct.)

Vox

"A fantastic and reasonably accessible introduction to the economic thought of a former Federal Reserve Chair."

|Los Angeles Times

"Bernanke’s insights are instructive about what went wrong and how to keep it from happening again."

New York Times

"Revelatory…the book sheds light on many of the smaller dramas that hang over this crucial period of world economic history."

The Financial Times - Martin Wolf

"A fascinating account of the effort to save the world from another catastrophe [like the Great Depression]…. Under Bernanke’s chairmanship, the Fed, whatever its pre-crisis mistakes, helped save the U.S. and the world from a disaster. Humanity should be grateful."

Washington Post

"A careful, detailed, and exceptionally clear justification for the Fed’s aggressive actions to avert another Great Depression and resuscitate the American economy."

New York Times Book Review

"Undoubtedly the best account we will ever have of how government and financial institutions dealt with what has come to be known as the Great Recession."

Library Journal

06/01/2015
Not long after Bernanke's 2006 appointment to the Federal Reserve, the housing industry collapsed, shoving the global economy into a tailspin. Here Bernanke recounts the Fed's use of every resource it could muster to pull the country through the Great Recession. With details of the run-up to events starting in 2002, when Bernanke first arrived in Washington; a six-city tour.

DECEMBER 2015 - AudioFile

Listeners who have heard Bernanke speak may be surprised, or even put off, by narrator Grover Gardner’s voice initially, but patience brings rewards. Gardner’s easy pace and spot-on emotional rendering while navigating a thick volume of economic theory and political maneuvering makes for a tremendous listen. Bernanke’s book provides another inside look at the decision making of the Federal Reserve chair who followed in the footsteps of the enormously popular Alan Greenspan during the recent financial crisis. Gardner’s narration keeps the story grounded and helps enliven Bernanke as a person as he traces his path to the Fed, along with the details of each crisis as it unfolded. M.L.R. 2016 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169930665
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	10/05/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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