Sponsorships
- Overview
- Business Book Award
- 30 Hudson Student Art
In 2005, Goldman Sachs, in partnership with the Financial Times, launched a global award, the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.
The award recognizes one business book that provides “the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues, including management, finance and economics.” The winning author received £30,000, and each of the shortlisted authors receives a £5,000 prize.
2009 Award
Winner:
Liaquat Ahamed won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2009 for Lords of Finance: 1929, The Great Depression, and the Bankers Who Broke the World, published by William Heinemann. The Award was presented October 29, 2009 at a gala dinner at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London by Lionel Barber, editor, Financial Times, and Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Goldman Sachs. The keynote speaker was The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson, UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills.
Lords of Finance: 1929, The Great Depression, and the Bankers who Broke the World
Liaquat Ahamed (William Heinemann/Random House UK, The Penguin Press USA)
Many of us take it as a given that the Great Depression – the consequences of which reverberated for decades, crippling the future of an entire generation and setting the stage for WWII – resulted from a confluence of inexorable forces beyond any one person or government’s control.
In fact, as erudite economist Liaquat Ahamed explains, it was the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers that was the primary cause of the economic meltdown.
In Lords of Finance, we meet the neurotic and enigmatic Montagu Norman of the Bank of England; the xenophobic and suspicious Émile Moreau of the Banque de France; the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank; and the dynamic Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. These four men were as prominent in their time as Alan Greenspan, Hank Paulson and Mervyn King are today, but their names were lost to history, their story untold, until now.
As yet another period of economic turmoil makes headlines today, the Great Depression and the year 1929 remain the benchmark for true financial mayhem. Lords of Finance brings a new understanding of the origins and global nature of financial crises, and offers a timely and arresting reminder that individuals – their ambitions, limitations and human nature – lie at the very heart of global catastrophe.
Shortlisted:
The shortlist for the fifth annual Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award is:
Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism
George A. Akerlof & Robert J. Shiller (Princeton University Press)
Good Value: Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World
Stephen Green (Allen Lane UK, Grove/Atlantic USA)
Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century
Nandan Nilekani (Allen Lane UK, The Penguin Press USA)
In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic
David Wessel (Crown Business)
Lords of Finance: 1929, The Great Depression, and the Bankers who Broke the World
Liaquat Ahamed (William Heineman/Random House UK, The Penguin Press USA)
The Match King: Ivar Kreuger and the Financial Scandal of the Century
Frank Partnoy (Profile Books UK, Public Affairs USA)
The judging panel for the 2009 Award was:
• Lionel Barber, Editor, Financial Times
• Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
• Mario Monti, President of the Bocconi University of Milan and the first Chairman of Bruegel
• Helen Alexander, President, CBI
• Lynda Gratton, Professor, London Business School
• Alexander S. Friedman, Chief Financial Officer, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Award is designed to highlight the book that provides the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues, including management, finance and economics. Entries were invited from publishers of business books in the English language that were first published between 31st October 2008 and 1st November 2009.
For more information and a synopses of the six book finalists, please read the press release. To learn more about the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, please visit the Financial Times Web site.
2008 Award
Mohamed El-Erian’s When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change was named the winner of last year’s award at a ceremony and gala dinner in New York, attended by over 200 senior executives from the publishing and business communities. When Markets Collide offers a cogent picture of the rapidly changing world financial system. The book explores the new economic landscape and provides a detailed blueprint for both capitalizing on the investment opportunities available in this landscape, and minimizing the challenging new set of risks.
See Video and Photography from last year's event.
William D. Cohan won the 2007 award for The Last Tycoons, James Kynge won the 2006 award for China Shakes the World, and the winner of the inaugural award in 2005 was Thomas Friedman for his book The World Is Flat.