Liaquat Ahamed

Liaquat Ahamed worked as an investment manager at the World Bank and at the advisory firm Rock Creek Group while writing "Lords of Finance" (2009). The book documented how four central bankers — Montagu Norman (Bank of England), Émile Moreau (Banque de France), Hjalmar Schacht (Reichsbank), and Benjamin Strong (Federal Reserve) — adhered to the gold standard doctrine and implemented contractionary policies that deepened the Great Depression. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2010 and became essential reading for central bankers and macro economists. The timing of publication — during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis — gave the book particular resonance, as policymakers and investors were looking for historical parallels to understand the severity of what they were experiencing. Ben Bernanke, then Federal Reserve chairman, was reportedly influenced by both the historical lessons in the book and the broader literature on the Depression that had shaped his own academic career.