Liaquat Ahamed is a Pulitzer-prize winning author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

  and investment manager. He has worked at the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

 in Washington D.C. and the New York-based partnership of Fischer, Francis, Trees and Watts, where he served as Chief Executive.

He was educated at Trinity College

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

 at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

.

Works

Ahamed is the author of Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

Lords of Finance

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World is a 2009 nonfiction book about events leading up to and culminating in the Great Depression as told through the personal histories of the heads of the Central Banks of the world's four major economies at the time: Benjamin Strong Jr...

(2009). The book was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for History

Pulitzer Prize for History

The Pulitzer Prize for History has been awarded since 1917 for a distinguished book upon the history of the United States. Many history books have also been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography...

, the 2010 Spear's Book Award (Financial History Book of the Year), the 2010 Arthur Ross Book Award

Arthur Ross Book Award

The Arthur Ross Book Award was endowed in 2001 by Arthur Ross for the purpose of recognizing books that make an outstanding contribution to the understanding of foreign policy or international relations. The prize is for nonfiction works from the past two years, in English or translation, and is...

 Gold Medal, the 2009 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award

Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award

Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award is an annual award given to the best business book of the year as determined by the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs. It aims to find the book that has ‘the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues.’ The...

. For 2009 it was recognized as one of Time magazine's

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

 "Best Books of the Year", New York Times "Best Books of the Year" and Amazon.com's

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

 "Best Books of the Year". It was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize

Samuel Johnson Prize

The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is one of the most prestigious prizes for non-fiction writing. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award and based on an anonymous donation. The prize is named after Samuel Johnson...

. It is published by Penguin Books (USA) Inc. ISBN 978-1-59420-182-0.

This 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 follows the life and actions of the then chiefs of the Central Banks of the world's major economies: Benjamin Strong Jr. of the New York Federal Reserve, Montagu Norman

Montagu Norman

Montagu Collet Norman, 1st Baron Norman DSO PC was an English banker, best known for his role as the Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944...

 of the Bank of England

Bank of England

The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...

, Émile Moreau

Émile Moreau (banker)

Émile Moreau was Governor of the Bank de France from 1926 to 1930 and chairman of Paribas from 1931 to 1940. After retiring from his role as governor he took a job in a private bank...

 of the Banque de France

Banque de France

The Banque de France is the central bank of France; it is linked to the European Central Bank . Its main charge is to implement the interest rate policy of the European System of Central Banks...

, and Hjalmar Schacht

Hjalmar Schacht

Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht was a German economist, banker, liberal politician, and co-founder of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic...

 of the Reichsbank

Reichsbank

The Reichsbank was the central bank of Germany from 1876 until 1945. It was founded on 1 January 1876 . The Reichsbank was a privately owned central bank of Prussia, under close control by the Reich government. Its first president was Hermann von Dechend...

. John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...

, a British eccentric and a well-known economist of the time appears on many occasions in the book in a role opposite to Central Bankers. The main theme of the book is the role played by the Central Banker's insistence to adhere to the gold standard

Gold standard

The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...

 "even in the face of total catastrophe".

External links

• Lords of Finance, video interview with Liaquat Ahamed at BookTV via C-Span
  C-SPAN
  C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
  
  , 59 minutes