Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization

by Gordon Brown Narrated by Gordon Brown

Overview

The international financial crisis that has held our global economy in its grip for too long still seems to be in full stride. Former British Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown believes the crisis can be reversed, but that the world's leaders must work together if we are to avoid a decade of lost jobs and low growth.

Brown speaks both as someone who was in the room driving discussions that led to some crucial decisions and as an expert renowned for his remarkable financial acumen. No one who had Brown's access has written about the crisis yet, and no one has written so convincingly about what the global community must do next in order to climb out of this abyss. Brown outlines the shocking recklessness and irresponsibility of the banks that he believes contributed to the depth and breadth of the crisis. As he sees it, the crisis was brought on not simply by technical failings, but by ethical failings too. Brown argues that markets need morals and suggests that the only way to truly ensure that the world economy does not flounder so badly again is to institute a banking constitution and a global growth plan for jobs and justice.

Beyond the Crash puts forth not just an explanation for what happened, but a directive for how to prevent future financial disasters. Long admired for his grasp of economic issues, Brown describes the individual events that he believes led to the crisis unfolding as it did. He synthesizes the many historical precedents leading to the current status, from the 1933 London conference of world leaders that failed to resolve the Great Depression to the more recent crash in the Asian housing market. Brown's analysis is of paramount importance during these uncertain financial times.

As Brown himself said of his ideas for the future, “We now live in a world of global trade, global financial flows, global movements of people, and instant global communications. Our economies are connected as never before, and I believe that global economic problems require global solutions and global institutions. In writing my analysis of the financial crisis, I wanted to help explain how we got here, but more important, to offer some recommendations as to how the next stage of globalization can be managed so that the economy works for people and not the other way around.”

Editorial Reviews

Anthony Faiola

Mirroring Brown's political style, the book is impersonal and plodding. But it is a credit to his intellect that the book's significance withstands his dry, textbook-like account of the world's descent into financial crisis, the breaking of that fall and the prescriptions for avoiding a repeat.
—The Washington Post

From the Publisher

'"Brown's] book is gripping because his matter-of-fact recounting of the early months of the crisis conveys the dilemmas and angst of polictymakers as they tried to handle the biggest economic drama in decades… The book conveys well Brown's sense of history, the rapid pace of change in the global economy and the failures of unfettered markets to manage things on their won. But it also conveys his moral sensibilities. He was a finance Minster who realized that finance was not an end in itself; that the true gauge of an economy was how it affected the well-being of its citizens. He was concerned about unemployment, not just inflation…. What is clear from this book is that Brown knew what needed to be done and tried to do it at a time when others were paralysed, captured by the financial community, or deluded by their past mistakes into trying to underestimate the severity of the crisis that their policies has helped create." —Joseph Stiglitz, Financial Times

"When the economic crisis erupted in 2008-9, Brown, like Churchill in 1940, was the right man in the right place at the right time. He'd had 10 years as chancellor of the exchequer. He'd read widely and thought deeply about economics, finance, globalization. He was the one national leader who came to the crisis with a plan and the authority to push it through...This is his story of how he did it, told soberly, clearly, compellingly. It is not a defence of his premiership, but his personal account of a heroic moment in it. He does not claim credit for "saving the world", but lets the story speak for itself, and praises the contribution of his own team and the other world leaders. It is an interrupted story, because he did not survive long enough politically to finish the job. Since he left the scene efforts to co-ordinate recovery policies have fallen to pieces. This is the measure of his achievement – and the hole that his departure left." —Robert Skidelsky, The Guardian

AUGUST 2011 - AudioFile

If you enjoy a European sound, Gordon Brown’s retrospective on the global financial crisis of the last several years, resounding with his crisp Scots accent, may be for you. If you prefer behind-the-scenes anecdotes about real-time events in the lives of global leaders, then this also may be a title that interests you. The former prime minister of the United Kingdom reads his text at a rapid pace, barely pausing at commas or periods. His swift delivery builds suspense as he recalls his thinking on liquidity, capital, and lending practices just as the lack of discipline among the global banks began to make regular headlines. M.R. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171061982
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	12/07/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos