Dear W.,
Bernanke’s memoir of his journey to the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve and his handling of the Great Recession and financial crisis of 2008 is brilliant. He tries to bring complex monetary policy into the language of the ‘intelligent reader’ of today’s popular-science books. I learned about subprime mortgages, the downfalls of banks, the behind-the-scenes of how banks lend to each other, the banks’ bank, who insures banks, and how important language is in telegraphing the Fed’s actions during their quarterly updates.
The Courage to Act gave me a reading list and a primer to what actually happened during the Great Recession from one of the leaders behind the (ultimately) successful recovery of the US economy. Highly recommend.
.bp