Alan Greenspan has been around for a long time, and the influence that he has exerted over world leaders over the past fifty years is astounding. In his newest book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, the former Federal Reserve Chairman lets readers into the private life of a ridiculously intelligent, powerful man. Sometimes the pages are filled with what would seem like egotistical name-dropping, but how is it egotistical when it is simply one’s life?  In one chapter Greenspan described a birthday party that then girlfriend Barbara Walters held for him, with the guest list including Henry and Nancy Kissinger, Oscar and Annette de la Renta, Brooke Astor, Joe and Estee Lauder, and David Rockefeller.

Social networks aside, economics is the prevailing interest of Greenspan’s life. But it hasn’t always been that way. He was born in 1926 and raised by a single mother in a poor area of New York City called Washington Heights. He began playing the clarinet at twelve, and was soon practicing for hours a day. This led to several years of playing in traveling jazz bands after high school. Finally in 1945 he enrolled at the School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance at New York University, where he fell in love with supply and demand curves.  In 1953 he and a partner opened the firm Townsend-Greenspan, which assisted corporations in applying current market trends to their individual businesses. During these years he became good friends with Ayn Rand, author of the books The Fountainhead  and Atlas Shrugged. He credits Rand with his continuing interest in the influence of culture upon economics.

Greenspan got involved in politics in 1967, during the Nixon campaign. He became Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors in 1974, just before Nixon resigned. (The Council of Economic Advisors has the job of keeping the President educated about current economic issues.) He continued in this post until Ford was unseated by Carter. In 1983 he was appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board by Ronald Reagan, a position which involved setting interest rates for the United States in order to curb the effects of inflations and recessions. He remained in that position for the next eighteen years, guiding the American economy through economic scares like the Asian Financial Crisis, wars, the dot-com boom and bust of the 90’s, and 9/11.

The second half of The Age of Turbulence is dedicated to Greenspan’s view of the future. He believes that America today is characterized by the phrase “creative destruction”, which describes the action of breaking down old machinery and processes and using the parts to construct something new and inventive. Creative destruction, according to Greenspan, is at the heart of every productive and growing society.

Greenspan views globalization, the much discussed extension of labor beyond national borders, very optimistically. He believes that globalization has limits, though, and that people have an inherent ‘home bias’ that will prevent complete integration of economies into one another. Corporate governance, education, and the environment are also issues that he discusses in-depth. He closes with the inspiring words: “Adaptation is in our nature, a fact that leads me to be deeply optimistic about our future... Progress is not automatic; however, it will demand future adaptations as yet unimaginable. But the frontier of hope that we all innately pursue will never close.”

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