Global Financial Warriors

January 1, 2007
Exactly one month after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, President Bush declared that "the first shot in the war was when we started cutting off their money, because an al-Qaeda organization can't function without money." In this data-heavy memoir, former Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs Taylor, currently an economics professor at Stanford, describes in exceptional detail that first salvo and the campaign it ignited: how the world economy was transformed in 9/11's aftermath and how his team became, quite literally, soldiers of fortune. Taylor brings readers face to face with a President making his hardest decisions and behind the scenes at many important G7 (later G8) meetings. Documenting every word and action, Taylor chronicles the financial reconstruction of both Afghanistan and Iraq-including the development of new currency, reformations at the IMF and the daunting work getting countries to forgive Iraqi debt-in too much detail, making this a longer than necessary read. Though the data and decisions he documents constitute irrefutably world-changing history, readers may find many of Taylor's section headings sufficiently informative ("Struggling to Move a Large, Disparate Group," "Getting the President's Approval for Stage One") to skip the thousand-plus words that follow.