The Pulitzer Prize-winning account of four central bankers — of the US, Britain, France, and Germany — whose decisions in the 1920s and 1930s crashed the global economy and triggered the Great Depression. Ahamed turns monetary policy into a page-turner, showing how ego, orthodoxy, and the gold standard turned a recession into a catastrophe. The book that makes you understand why central banks matter more than stock picks.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.