Prelude to Disaster

Please excuse the late intervention. I stayed up last night to finish Lords of Finance and should say first that I recommend it.

This is not a polemical book and it is also not primarily a work of economics, though there is a huge amount of economic history in it. It is first of all the social history of a small, important and largely forgotten group: the central bankers of the early 20th century, in the four countries whose finances, empires and ambitions dominated the globe. No question that the cover image is well-chosen.