1873

“Superb … Ahamed thrillingly brings back to life a boom not unlike today’s and a crisis that doesn’t resemble 1929 or 2007-09. In the process, he illuminates new ways of thinking about finance.” —Patrick Foulis, Financial Times

“A lively and compelling account … The cumulative effect is impressive. Without ever coming out and saying so, Ahamed presents a world-spanning financial system that was rotten to its core, a machine that ran on lies, bribes and greed, busily manufacturing its own political opponents… . Ahamed tells his story with an easy fluency and a high velocity.” —Trevor Jackson, The New York Times Book Review

“Timely and engaging.” —John Cassidy, The New Yorker

“Ahamed’s book is the best study I’ve ever read, I think that could ever be achieved, of that economic crisis [of 1873] … Ahamed really understands the American economy as part of a global economic system … Because he thinks globally he can cast light locally in a way that is really remarkable … Beautifully written and very accessible.” —David Frum, “The David Frum Show”

“Liaquat Ahamed won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for Lords of Finance, his account of how four central bankers helped bring about the Great Depression in 1929. If there is a God, Ahamed should win a second one for 1873, his utterly compelling history of the world’s first global financial disaster and how the Rothschilds banking family got caught up in the maelstrom.” —Air Mail

“Ahamed possesses the enviable ability to make financial history read like a Trollopean saga rejigged by Michael Lewis.” —TheTimes (UK)

“[A]n eye-opening investigation of the ‘first truly significant global financial crisis.’ … Granular and deeply researched, it’s an essential new perspective on the link between capitalism’s boom and bust cycles and the emergence of reactionary political movements.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Lively … An exemplary work of economic history, with many lessons for the present.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“Riveting … This supremely useful historical analysis not only explains past events but also, with its unsettling parallels to current economic woes, offers readers and policymakers clear directions for present and future paths to avoid.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“Liaquat Ahamed has a unique ability to bring financial and monetary history to life. In this superb book, he weaves together the people, forces, and events that led to the global financial crisis of 1873 and then shaped its dire long-term consequences. Not least, he shows how a huge boom-and-bust cycle combined with the decision to make gold the sole monetary anchor, to create a first global ‘great depression.’” —Martin Wolf, author of The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

“Pendulum shifts in the political economy happen slowly—and then all at once. In this fantastically readable history, Liaquat Ahamed shows us how frothy real estate markets, a burgeoning middle class, failing autocrats, a dodgy bond market, and other seemingly disparate forces eventually came together to produce the first global financial crisis of the modern era. It’s a book that has all too much to tell us about our own time period; indeed, it provides both a warning and a roadmap for what might come next.” —Rana Foroohar, author of Homecoming and Don’t Be Evil

“With his readable prose and agile analysis, Liaquat Ahamed has a talent for telescoping huge financial fiascoes into compact and exciting books. 1873 describes how speculative mania and misguided monetary policy produced debt and deflation that shadowed the final decades of the 19th century. With its cast of colorful villains, this saga contains a wealth of sobering insights that ought to sound a warning in our own hyper-speculative era.” —Ron Chernow

“Liaquat Ahamed matches his earlier Lords of Finance with a page-turning saga of the world’s first international financial crisis. By pinpointing the essential characters, from the avaricious Jay Cooke in America to the Turkish sultan blowing his budget on a harem of two hundred women to the mysterious Rothschild banking clan, Ahamed makes 1873 seem as alive as today. And in his hands, it is. By confronting the question of what could topple economies across multiple time zones, this master writer comes again to the question of money, over a quarter-century in which prices spiraled out of control—not up, but down—sowing misery for the common man, especially in America. We read with fascination how Gilded Age bankers and statemen missed the yawning danger of deflation—and wonder if those in our time have yet to learn their lesson. A gripping read, Ahamed makes the crisis of 1873 both compelling and accessible.” —Roger Lowenstein, author of Ways and Means and Buffett

“The latest book from financial historian Ahamed, the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lords of Finance, chronicles the first Great Depression, with special emphasis on the Rothschilds, providing ‘a bird’s-eye reckoning with the full dimension of the crisis, from its buildup to its long aftermath.’ Always relevant, and in 2026, it might just be even more so.” —Emily Temple, LitHub (Most Anticipated Books of 2026)

Liaquat Ahamed graduated with degrees in economics from Cambridge and Harvard. He worked at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and had a twenty-five-year career as a professional investment manager based in London and New York before turning to writing.

His first book, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, about the lead-up to the 1929 Great Depression, won the Pulitzer Prize for History, the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award Gold Medal, and the Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year Award.

He is a trustee of Putnam Investments, an adviser to the RockCreek group, and the chair of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference. He lives in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., with his wife, Meena.

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