The Age of Turbulence; Adventures in a New World by Greenspan, Alan - 2007

New York: The Penguin Press, 2007. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [8], 531, [3] pages, Illustrations. Footnotes. A Note on Sources. Index. Bookplate signed by the author on the half-title page. Autographed copy sticker on front of DJ. Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. First appointed Federal Reserve chairman by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987, he was reappointed at successive four-year intervals until retiring on January 31, 2006, after the second-longest tenure in the position. Although he was subdued in his public appearances, favorable media coverage raised his profile to a point that several observers likened him to a "rock star". Democratic leaders of Congress criticized him for politicizing his office because of his support for Social Security privatization and tax cuts. The money policies of the Fed during Greenspan's tenure have been suggested by some to be a leading cause of the dotcom bubble and subprime mortgage crisis. With the distillation of a life's worth of wisdom and insight into an elegant expression of a coherent worldview, this book will stand as Greenspan's personal and intellectual legacy. The first half of The Age of Turbulence is an autobiographical chronology of Greenspan's life that shows readers the people and circumstances that helped shape and guide Greenspan-from hours of clarinet and saxophone practice to living-room philosophy with Ayn Rand. The second half of the book retells several major economic events (primarily within the United States) that have occurred over the past half century. It details his economic endeavors and personal observations while serving under various U.S. presidents and are often intermingled with the economic events. The latter half of the book also includes an analysis and brief history of major global economic constructs-Marxist communism, populism, and various mutations of market capitalism-along with Greenspan's opinions about their relative merits and shortcomings.