Book Review: The Age of Turbulence

By Elizabeth Macanufo 

Winter 2008

Alan Greenspan accepted a position with The Conference Board after graduating from New York University in 1948. The financial research organization held great appeal for the young analyst.

“For me the library was the big event. I discovered a treasure trove of data on every major industry in America dating back half a century and more.” Fifty-eight years later, Greenspan retired as chairman of the board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board after a 19-year tenure, allowing him to create his opus, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. Within the 550 pages, Greenspan proves his brain holds as much information as any library.

Greenspan’s memoir begins on September 11, 2001. The chairman received news of the tragic events while in Switzerland. His wife, Andrea Mitchell, NBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent in Washington, D.C., filled her husband in on the details of the day by holding up her cell phone as she reported on air to the country. Greenspan hitched a ride back to the U.S. on an Air Force plane to sort through the economic repercussions of the terrorist attack. With this scenario, Greenspan set the stage for his book: a political tell-all colliding with an economics text book. Interweaving biographical information with American social and economic history, Greenspan offers a unique perspective. Not many authors have worked closely with six U.S. presidents.

The author begins his life story with details from his childhood spent in New York City. Raised by his Jewish-immigrant mother, Greenspan only later realized the effect his father, a broker, had on him. He remembers having “an affinity for numbers,” and using his math-mind to remember Yankee stats. Hoping to one day make the team, the gawky Greenspan “peaked at fourteen” and turned his attention to music. He joined a jazz band in high school and attended Julliard.

Although Greenspan loved music, he read books about the British stock market while smelling the “tobacco and pot” his bandmates enjoyed. He enrolled in New York University’s School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance, focusing on the math curriculum. Greenspan read economic theories that affected his opinions throughout his career and formed relationships to secure a position as an economic analyst.

Shortly thereafter, Greenspan formed his own research firm, Townsend-Greenspan. He recounts his early days in the economic field with a grandfatherly tone. “In 1947... statistics had to be painstakingly built by layering sets of statistics on top of one another, using pencil and paper, slide rules and desktop adding machines. He admits that even by the sixties he was “pretty much out of step with the times.”