The book is a fascinating view from one of the inside players. Gordon Brown was one of the first people to recognise there was a problem with how the banks evaluated debts. In dealing with the debt of Africa in 2005, he became aware of this problem in Gleneagles in 2005. American banks underestimated the huge amounts of bad debt. After 2008, when the crisis was beginning to blow, Gordon Brown was the first to realise this crisis and he recapitalised the banks. The banks had gone in for easy money, but worldwide co-operation would have made the situation easier. If we play the game – and Gordon Brown’s book is a huge contribution – global development can be managed in a co-operative way, and the crisis can be finished soon. If the lessons are not learned, this will linger for a long time.
Prof. Amaryta Sen, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Nobel Prize winner in economics in 1998
Watch the video here.
This is an intense book with few revelatory moments. The reader would not gather that while Brown was busy saving the world, his domestic political position was crumbling. For an instant account of the Brown premiership, you will need to turn to Anthony Seldon’s and Guy Lodge’s Brown at 10.
Still, what Brown chooses to reveal is illuminating. He likes statistics because he sees “stories behind numbers”. He tells how he prepares for “huge challenges” by reading widely, consulting the cleverest people available, and then thinking through the consequences of alternative decisions. This orderly intellectual preparation is in stark contrast to his chaotic administrative habits. The book is infused with a subdued moral passion. Deficiency of aggregate demand is “not an abstract question but a profoundly moral one; to my mind it is simply wrong to leave people without jobs and the ability to build a better life for their families when there is work that needs to be done”. Brown blames the bankers not just for their incompetence but their lack of morals.
Brown follows other fallen leaders in being more admired abroad than at home. He came to care more about poverty in the developing world than in Britain, a right priority for a statesman, but fatal for an elected politician. At a summit in Italy, he brought tears to Berlusconi’s eyes and a more practical response from Obama with the story of a boy tortured to death in Rwanda.
Prof. Robert Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, Warwick University, Guardian, 12 December 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/12/beyond-the-crash-gordon-brown-robert-skidelsky
