Firefighting

The three officials who led the American policy response to the 2008 financial crisis, Ben S. Bernanke, Timothy F. Geithner and Henry M. Paulson Jr., look back on it ten years later. They examine what caused the crisis, why it did so much damage, and what it took to prevent a second Great Depression. The account covers the choices they and their teams made while serving under two presidents and working with the leaders of Congress. Taking up Bernanke's warning that the enemy is forgetting, the authors also offer a playbook for limiting the damage of future crises, addressed to American successors and to finance ministers and central bank governors in other countries.

Warren Buffett endorsed it, saying he learned much from it that he had not known before and that its warnings about the future should be read by every policy maker.