Reviews
"Mallaby has a rare ability to blend the stories of powerful people with insights into influential institutions and formidable policy challenges. 'The Man Who Knew' is a superb biography -- as well as an economic history, political profile, and monetary policy primer. Careful research, fine writing, an intriguing narrative, and a cautionary tale: This book has it all."--Robert B. Zoellick, Former President of the World Bank, US Trade Representative, and US Deputy Secretary of State "A fascinating and balanced study of arguably the most important figure of the post-war global financial scene."--Mervyn King, Former Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of its Monetary Policy Committee "Admire him or despise him, Alan Greenspan was the preeminent financial statesman of the post-war era. But Sebastian Mallaby's magisterial biography casts him as something more (and more intriguing) than that: a masterly and mesmerizing politician. Whether counseling Richard Nixon on the race-freighted Southern strategy, scheming with Watergate felon Charles Colson on a plan to neuter the Federal Reserve's independence, or waging bureaucratic war against Henry Kissinger (and winning!), Greenspan was cunning, stealthy, and ruthless, neck deep in the political intrigues of his era--less the bloodless monetary technocrat of lore than the J. Edgar Hoover of economics. In riveting, page-turning fashion, The Man Who Knew reveals the man in full."--John Heilemann, managing editor of Bloomberg Politics, host of With All Due Respect, author of Game Change and Double Down "A splendid biography--compelling, readable, provocative, richly researched, brimming with authorial intelligence. A rich, subtle portrait of a complex and surprisingly vulnerable human being. The Man Who Knew is a courageous book, for it reckons with Greenspan's shortcomings with unbridled honesty. Its judgments are all the more devastating because Mallaby is scrupulously fair, as unafraid to praise as he is to critique. And as he leads us through the passages of Greenspan's life, Mallaby takes us on a tour of the sizzling financial dramas and of the great intellectual debates of the postwar years, from the inflation agonies of Gerald Ford to the mortgage bubble of the early 2000s. The Man Who Knew will surely become the definitive Greenspan biography." --Roger Lowenstein, author of America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve, and When Genius Failed., "A splendid biography--compelling, readable, provocative, richly researched, brimming with authorial intelligence. A rich, subtle portrait of a complex and surprisingly vulnerable human being. The Man Who Knew is a courageous book, for it reckons with Greenspan's shortcomings with unbridled honesty. Its judgments are all the more devastating because Mallaby is scrupulously fair, as unafraid to praise as he is to critique. And as he leads us through the passages of Greenspan's life, Mallaby takes us on a tour of the sizzling financial dramas and of the great intellectual debates of the postwar years, from the inflation agonies of Gerald Ford to the mortgage bubble of the early 2000s. The Man Who Knew will surely become the definitive Greenspan biography." --Roger Lowenstein, author of America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve, and When Genius Failed.