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Glowing Professorial reviews of 'Beyond the Crash' by Gordon Brown
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
It's even more clear Gordon Brown is man of integrity
Gordon Brown’s book ‘Beyond the crash: Overcoming the first crisis of globalization’ will be on sale next Monday. To order it, please use this link.
Gordon Brown’s book will give an account of the events that led to the fiscal downward spiral and the reactions of world leaders as they took steps to avoid further disaster to build a sound economic future; it is anticipated that this work will help readers to understand what really has happened to the UK economy. Brown believes that we now live in a world of global trade, global financial flows, global movements of people and instant global communications. Our economies are connected as never before, and it is Brown’s central thesis that global economic problems require global solutions and global institutions.
I am particularly struck by the title of Gordon Brown’s book because of its uncanny similarity to ‘Beyond the Crisis’, written by Prof Amarytna Sen, who indeed was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. Prof Sen was the Master of Trinity College Cambridge, and is a Emeritus Professor of Economics, like the Labour peer Lord John Eatwell.
It is plainly obvious that George Osborne is clearly out of his depth in comparison. Gordon Brown has held his beliefs in strong leadership, despite formidable criticism. It is clear now he is a man of enormous integrity. For example, he did not make cheap political points regarding Gary Mackinnon. Whilst David Cameron and Nick Clegg have already achieved some coverage over this, Wikileaks has revealed some ‘behind-the-scenes’ work of Gordon Brown that nobody knew about. Gary McKinnon’s mother, Janis Sharp, is due to testify to Vaz’s committee this morning as it launches a hearing into the extradition demands. Brown made his unsuccessful direct intervention in August 2009, according to a secret cable from the US ambassador in the UK, Louis Susman, to the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
