Book reviews
Book notes: The bankers’ new clothes, second edition, by Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig
A disjointed book where ‘I told you so’ new chapters add little to the excellent original analysis
Book notes: The monetarists: the making of the Chicago monetary tradition, 1927-1960, by George S Tavlas
A fascinating, scholarly and sympathetic account of the Chicago monetary tradition
Book notes: Easy money, cryptocurrency, casino capitalism, and the golden age of fraud, Ben McKenzie with Jacob Silverman
Casts light on how shady crypto characters defraud consumers but does little to identify and control such fraudsters while protecting the public
Book notes: How a ledger became a central bank: a monetary history of the Bank of Amsterdam, by Stephen Quinn and William Roberds
A masterful piece of monetary history that is relevant to modern-day central bankers
Book notes: Bucking the buck: US financial sanctions and the international backlash against the dollar, by Daniel McDowell
A timely and well-documented book about the weaponisation of the US dollar
Book notes: The wealth of a nation, by Geoffrey Hodgson
This book provides a deep dive into the economic and institutional transformations that supported the rise of English capitalism
Book notes: Balance of power: central banks and the fate of democracies, by Éric Monnet and translated by Steven Rendall
This short book offers partial insights, but ultimately underwhelms
Book notes: Fintech: finance, technology and regulation, by Ross Buckley, Douglas Arner and Dirk Zetzsche
An excellent overview of fintech 3.0 and 4.0 that also includes suggestions for smart regulation
Book notes: Going infinite: the rise and fall of a new tycoon, by Michael Lewis
Nothing in the book left this reader thinking anything positive at all about Bankman-Fried
Book notes: Virtuous bankers: a day in the life of the 18th-century Bank of England, by Anne L Murphy
A bottom-up account of how clerks managed operations and enhanced the BoE’s reputation
Book notes: Number go up: inside crypto’s wild rise and staggering fall, by Zeke Faux
The book would be a great, comic obituary of crypto, if only crypto were dead
Book notes: The ruble: a political history, by Ekaterina Pravilova
Indispensable reading for anyone interested in Russia and comparative, long-term historical accounts of monetary ideologies and practice
Book notes: Easy money, by Dror Goldberg
Interesting interpretations but hard to view 1690s Massachusetts paper as the invention of modern currency
Book notes: We need to talk about inflation, by Stephen King
A short, sensible book that highlights key issues – and might make a good, belated Christmas gift!
Book notes: The economic government of the world 1933–2023, by Martin Daunton
A deep dive into the politics, personalities, trade theory and trade practice of the era, but missing a crucial element: the collapse in the US stock of money
Book notes: Economists in the cold war, by Alan Bollard
A geographically balanced review of key economists that shaped the world economy
Book notes: The Continental dollar, by Farley Grubb
Grubb’s book brings an important new interpretation to this founding moment in US financial history
Book notes: Bold vision, by Freddy Orchard
Largely uncritical insights about the formation of the GIC and Singapore’s currency regime
Book notes: My journeys in economic theory, by Edmund Phelps
Six decades of the Nobel Prize-winner’s thoughts – from micro-foundations of macro theory to the possibilities beyond working, saving and investing
Book notes: The crisis of democratic capitalism, by Martin Wolf
A sincere attempt to explain and fix the failing of capitalism in liberal democracies
Book notes: Inflation targeting and central banks, by Joanna Niedźwiedzińska
A useful and rich reference source, especially for central banks moving to adopt inflation targeting