This book addresses an important issue that deserves wide readership. It is lucid and clear and deals with some very important episodes in American history.—Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist"William Silber has performed two sterling services with this fascinating and original book. He has illuminated the hitherto neglected financial crisis of 1914, an event that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the Crash of 1929 in the history of Wall Street. But he has also come up with some bold and compelling answers to two burning questions that are of more than purely historical interest: How should monetary policymakers cope with a really big and unexpected political shock? And how does one international reserve currency come to be overtaken by another? I cannot praise this book too highly. It is rare that one author so skillfully unites the disciplines of finance and history."—Niall Ferguson, Harvard University, author of Colossus"A fascinating story that mixes first-rate economic theory with telling observations about U.S. financial and monetary policy decisions taken in the midst of an international finance crisis that were permanently to reshape the international financial landscape. The book is full of insights about the ideas and the personalities of the founders of the Federal Reserve System and other anchors of our financial system today."—Thomas Sargent, Hoover Institution, coauthor of The Big Problem of Small Change"Silber tells a compelling tale proving the power of the law of unintended consequences. The financial crisis of 1914 was a major turning point in American economic history, an outcome nobody could have predicted as massive amounts of gold sailed to Europe, banks shook at their foundations, and the nascent Federal Reserve System was only just going into operation. What a story!"—Peter L. Bernstein, author of The Power of Gold"Silber's book weaves a fascinating