The Man Who Knew: The Life & Times of Alan Greenspan

An insight into a complex man that is Alan Greenspan and the power he wielded as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. In his defense, It's fair to say that Mr Greenspan acted based on the information available; admittedly, he was willfully blind to information or making decisions that were at odds with his beliefs. Thereby choosing his battles wisely to increase his odds of victory and influence in Washington.

Very well written and balanced book, I started with Greenspan’s own autobiography which I thought was too self flattering. However this book is very well researched and balanced.

I am very pleased with the book

delivered promptly - heavy read!

Great book...very readable

This is a superb biography, a very well written book, very easy to read and which explains the technicalities of finance in terms which is non patronising.Like many, my view of Greenspan before I read this book was unequivocal: he was a fallen idol, a man with feet of clay who was in fact a profound failure when all is said and done; he laid the groundwork for the crash of 2008.This book paints a much more nuanced view of Greenspan whilst still not acquitting him of the main charges against him. At the end of the day it paints a picture of a powerful man but one who was, nevertheless, in actuality, constrained by larger forces which did inhibit his ability to do what he may have thought right. Even a man like Paul Volcker, who no one would ever accuse of tacking to the wind, was outvoted and did not get his way on a number of occasions and Greenspan was the same. As Sebastian Mallaby chronicles, the Balkanisation of regulation and the capture of the Congress by vested interests made (and makes) any sort of fundamental reform difficult, if not effectively impossible and the voice of the Chairman of the fed is just one voice, albeit a powerful one.Anyone who wants to know about the history of the US economy and finance in the last forty or fifty years should have this book at the top of their list.

This was an extremely well written and absorbing book, and does a great job of given in-depth details of every phase in Greenspan's life. Like most people, he was only familiar to be as a central banker, and it was particularly interesting to learn about his earlier life in business & politics, and how it shape is economic outlook. I'd recommend this book to anyone with an interest in finance or economics, or someone who wanted a more in depth understanding of what drove his actions leading up to the financial crisis.

Sebastian Mallaby presents the life story of the most powerful economist in history with all his successes and failures, often questioning the common knowledge. The author convincingly presents that Greenspan is blamed for failures in regulatory policy, but his impact on it was much smaller than commonly believed. On the other hand, Greenspan is commonly positively assessed on the monetary policy, even though this was the area, where he had a great impact and 2008 crisis was partially a result of him focusing too much on price stability instead of financial stability. Many present Greenspan as libertarian, but he abandoned libertarianism early in his career and was a pragmatic and empiricist during his consulting and central bank times. He realized market flaws more than most economists, but he underestimated the consequences of market failures. He was a man of great intellect, but he frequently failed to put his believes into action confronted with political reality. He chose gaining political friends and preserving his influence over risking his position to defend his stance.H