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Maestro

Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom

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About The Book

In eight Tuesdays each year, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan convenes a small committee to set the short-term interest rate that can move through the American and world economies like an electric jolt. As much as any, the committee's actions determine the economic well-being of every American. The availability of money for business or consumer loans, mortgages, job creation and overall national economic growth flows from those decisions. Perhaps the last Washington secret is how the Federal Reserve and its enigmatic chairman, Alan Greenspan, operate. In Maestro, Bob Woodward takes you inside the Fed and Greenspan's thinking. We listen to the Fed's internal debates as the American economy is pushed into a historic 10-year expansion while the world economy lurches from financial crisis to financial crisis. Greenspan plays a sometimes subtle, sometimes blunt behind-the-scenes role. He appears in Maestro up close as never before -- alternately nervous and calm, plunging into mathematics one moment and politics the next, skeptical, dispassionate, always struggling -- often alone.
Maestro traces a fascinating intellectual journey as Greenspan, an old-school anti-inflation hawk of the traditional economy, is among the first to realize the potential in the modern, high-productivity new economy -- the foundation of the current American boom. Woodward's account of the Greenspan years is a remarkable portrait of a man who has become the symbol of American economic preeminence.

About The Author

Lisa Berg
Bob Woodward

Bob Woodward is the author of three consecutive #1 New York Times bestsellers on President Trump—Fear (2018), Rage (2020), and Peril (2021) with Robert Costa—and an audiobook of 20 interviews with Trump. He has authored 22 bestselling books, 15 of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers, covering every president from Nixon to Biden.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (November 14, 2000)
  • Length: 272 pages
  • ISBN13: 9780743215374

Raves and Reviews

"Woodward has established himself as the best reporter of our time. He may be the best reporter of all time."
-- Bob Schieffer, CBS News Face the Nation

"Scrupulous and illuminating...Woodward lucidly explains the axes of intellectual and political disagreement over monetary policy...shedding new light on major conflicts of the Greenspan era."
-- The New York Times Book Review

"A gripping ride through the oddly fragile and insecure world of big money and the curious mind of Greenspan."
-- San Francisco Chronicle

"Fascinating, intimate...the best inside job on the subject yet to appear."
-- The Dallas Morning News

"Admirably accomplishes what it sets out to do: demystify a Washington institution that is dimly understood by most Americans."
-- USA Today

"Replete with the sort of fly-on-the-wall reporting for which Woodward is famous. What comes across most clearly is Greenspan's skill at the political power games that determine who survives in the cutthroat world of Washington."
-- BusinessWeek

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