After 9/11, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, knew, if he needed any further reinforcement, that we're living in a new world--the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than it was even 20 years ago. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. This book is Alan Greenspan's reckoning with the nature of this new world--how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill--channeled through his own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure.--From publisher description.

City kid -- The making of an economist -- Economics meets politics -- Private citizen -- Black Monday -- The fall of the wall -- A Democrat's agenda -- Irrational exuberance -- Millennium fever -- Downturn -- The nation challenged -- The universals of economic growth -- The modes of capitalism -- The choices that await China -- The tigers and the elephant -- Russia's sharp elbows -- Latin America and populism -- Current accounts and debt -- Globalization and regulation -- The "conundrum" -- Education and income inequality -- The world retires. But can it afford to? -- Corporate governance -- The long-term energy squeeze -- The Delphic future.