"With penetrating insights for today, this history of the world economic collapse of the late 1920s presents unforgettable portraits of the four men whose personal and professional actions as heads of their respective central banks changed the course of the twentieth century." "In Lords of Finance, we meet the neurotic and enigmatic Montagu Norman of the Bank of England; the xenophobic and suspicious Emile Moreau of the Banque de France; the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank; and Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose facade of energy and drive masked a deeply wounded and overburdened man. After the First World War, these central bankers attempted to reconstruct the world of international finance. Despite all their differences, they were united by a common fear - that the greatest threat to capitalism was inflation - and a common vision - that the solution was to turn back the clock and return the world to the gold standard." "Offering a new understanding of the global nature of financial crises, Lords of Finance is a potent reminder of the enormous impact that the decisions of central bankers can have, their fallibility,and the terrible human consequences that can result when they are wrong"--Book jacket.