あらすじ
Marriner Eccles, a Mormon from Utah, was invited to join Franklin Roosevelt's administration in 1934. As a Republican businessman, he seemed an unlikely figure to emerge as the leading crusader for a fairer and more economically sound distribution of the nation's wealth. From his position in the Treasury Department he became the central figure in revolutionizing the mortgage structure of the private home market in the United States. Convinced that housing construction could lead the way to economic prosperity, he waged an indefatigable struggle to get that sector of the economy to achieve its full potential. After FDR appointed him to head the Federal Reserve, Eccles drafted legislation that restructured that institution as well, and redirected its center of power from New York City to Washington D.C. From his position as the Fed Chairman throughout the remainder of the New Deal, he became the most forceful advocate of what would come to be termed "Keynesian Policy," an effort that inspired the renowned economist John Kenneth Gailbraith to later tell him: "Yours is the only revolution on record that entered government by way of a central bank." In this book Mark Wayne Nelson gives us a detailed account of the efforts of one of the most underappreciated public servants in American history.
