Book reviews
Book notes: The euro and the battle of ideas, by Markus K Brunnermeier, Harold James and Jean-Pierre Landau
The authors have produced a fascinating and informative book that offers suggestions on how differences in beliefs can be overcome
Book notes: A few hares to chase, by Alan Bollard
The former Reserve Bank of New Zealand governor has produced a interesting account of the life of engineer-turned-economist Bill Phillips
Book notes: The power and independence of the Federal Reserve, by Peter Conti-Brown
Conti-Brown offers a call to action to fix the legitimacy of the Federal Reserve System, which is looking increasingly dated
Book notes: Lehman Brothers: a crisis of value, by Oonagh McDonald
McDonald's book offers a useful synopsis of the multiple failings at Lehman Brothers running up to 2008, but ultimately fails to add significantly to what was already known
Book notes: Bretton Woods: the next 70 years
The Bretton Woods Committee has assembled a large number of distinguished authors for this volume, but ultimately the book ends up long on problems and short on solutions
Book notes: The end of alchemy, by Mervyn King
King’s book on how to fix everything that is wrong with the financial and economic system lays out radical proposals that deserve serious consideration
Book notes: Stabilising capitalism: a greater role for central banks, by Pierluigi Ciocca
Pierluigi Ciocca offers an excellent, brief and crisp account of the main issues facing central banks today
Book notes: Between debt and the devil, by Adair Turner
Adair Turner offers a lively and well-structured account of his proposals to radically overhaul the financial sector
Book notes: Debtonator, by Andrew McNally
A lucid book questioning society’s bias towards debt and against equity
Book notes: Phishing for phools, by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller
The veteran economists’ study of the traps markets create for unwitting consumers ultimately ends up doing exactly what the authors caution against
Book notes: Civic Capitalism, by Colin Hay and Anthony Payne
A book that espouses redesigning capitalism into 'civic capitalism'
Book notes: The challenge of economic rebalancing in Europe, perspectives for CESEE countries, edited by Ewald Nowotny et al
A useful book on the failure of the European economy to recover from the 2008 recession, and the slowing down of the convergence of central and eastern European economies with the core of the EU
Book notes: Banking Reform in Nigeria, by Yomi Makanjuola
A gripping read, starting with Sanusi Lamido Sanusi's leadership of the Central Bank of Nigeria in 2009
Book notes: The Great Divide, by Joseph E Stiglitz
Stiglitz’s new book argues that deregulation was an important cause of the recent banking crisis
Book notes: Efficiently Inefficient: How Smart Money Invests and Market Prices are Determined, by Lasse Heje Pedersen
A book that offers a condensed picture of hedge funds’ operations and strategies, written by a person with considerable academic and practical experience
Book notes: The Lion Wakes: A Modern History of HSBC, by Richard Roberts and David Kynaston
A weighty tome, commissioned by HSBC to commemorate its 150th anniversary
Book notes: Money and Trade Wars in Interwar Europe, by Alessandro Roselli
Alessandro Roselli’s book on interwar Europe should be compulsory reading for all those who are handling or interested in the current crisis in the euro area
Book notes: Monetary policy and financial repression in Britain 1951–1959, by William A Allen
A fascinating and coherent account of British monetary policy in the 1950s
Book notes: Smart Money, by Andrew Palmer
An important attempt to show how financial innovation is “reshaping our world for the better” all the more important
Book notes: The media and financial crises, by Steve Schifferes and Richard Roberts
A fascinating book, which gives a very different perspective on the financial crisis and its predecessors
Book notes: Hall of mirrors, by Barry Eichengreen
A scholarly, but readable narrative that interleaves an account of the build-up to and course of the Great Depression with the similar course of events in the Global Financial Crisis
Book notes: Don’t start from here, by David Shirreff
A pointed, passionate plea for a simpler banking system that deserves to be taken seriously
Book notes: Emerging Africa, by Kingsley Moghalu
Sub-Saharan Africa is no basket case, but neither is it poised to follow China and India on their meteoric economic rise, Kingsley Moghalu argues in his forthright book