Meet Bestselling Author, Roger Lowenstein, and Learn How the Federal Reserve Was Created

Join acclaimed financial journalist and bestselling author, Roger Lowenstein, and hear him read from his newly published book America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve.

Larchmont Public Library on Sunday, December 4, at 4:00pm. Refreshments will be available at 3:30pm. Sponsored by the Friends of the Larchmont Public Library.

In America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve, Roger Lowenstein—author of When Genius Failed and The End of Wall Street—tells the drama-laden story of how America created the Federal Reserve, thereby taking its first steps onto the world stage as a global financial power. America’s Bank showcases Lowenstein at his very finest: illuminating complex financial and political issues with striking clarity, infusing the debates of our past with all the gripping immediacy of today, and painting unforgettable portraits of Gilded Age bankers, presidents, and politicians.

Lowenstein focuses on the four men at the heart of the struggle to create the Federal Reserve. These were Paul Warburg, a refined, German-born financier, recently relocated to New York, who was horrified by the primitive condition of America’s finances; Rhode Island’s Nelson W. Aldrich, the reigning power broker in the U.S. Senate and an archetypal Gilded Age legislator; Carter Glass, the ambitious, if then little-known, Virginia congressman who chaired the House Banking Committee at a crucial moment of political transition; and President Woodrow Wilson, the academician-turned-progressive-politician who forced Glass to reconcile his deep-seated differences with bankers and accept the principle (anathema to southern Democrats) of federal control. Weaving together a raucous era in American politics with a storied financial crisis and intrigue at the highest levels of Washington and Wall Street, Lowenstein brings the beginnings of one of the country’s most crucial institutions to vivid and unforgettable life. Readers of this gripping historical narrative will wonder whether they’re reading about one hundred years ago or the still-seething conflicts that mark our discussions of banking and politics today.

Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernake, said Lowenstein’s book is "A highly engaging historical account of the personalities and politics behind the creation of the Federal Reserve” and the New York Times Book Review said the “book should be required reading”.

Roger Lowenstein (born in 1954) is an American financial journalist and writer. He graduated from Cornell University and reported for the Wall Street Journal for more than a decade, including two years writing its Heard on the Street column, 1989 to 1991. Born in 1954, he is the son of Helen and Louis Lowenstein of Larchmont, N.Y. Lowenstein is married to Judith Slovin. He is also a director of Sequoia Fund. His father, the late Louis Lowenstein, was an attorney and Columbia University law professor who wrote books and articles critical of the American financial industry.

Roger Lowenstein's latest book, America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve (The Penguin Press) was released on October 20, 2015.