The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World

New York: The Penguin Press, 2007. Reprint. Fourth printing. Hardcover. Very good/very good. 531 pages, illus., note on sources, footnotes, index. Signed by the author on the title page. Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as Chair of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. He currently works as a private adviser. 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. Greenspan came to the Federal Reserve Board from a consulting career. Although he was subdued in his public appearances, 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, which they felt would increase the deficit. 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 Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World is a 2007 memoir of former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan. Published on September 17, 2007, the book debuted at the top of the New York Times Bestseller list for hardcover nonfiction. 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. The Economist considered the book to be "first-rate", noting that "it engages on different levels: it is intelligent in a way that few popular books on economics manage or even try to be; and, wonder of wonders, it is a good read". The New York Times's David Leonhardt said that it was "surprisingly frank" and often "downright entertaining". In the New York Review of Books, Benjamin M. Friedman was largely praising of the book, describing it as "clearly written and easy to read and understand" and says that Greenspan is "forthright in sharing his views on not only policy issues but also the personalities of many of the people with whom he worked during his time in office. His opinions frequently run counter to his well-known Republican political loyalties, which he also makes no effort to hide"