After 9/11, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, knew, if he needed any further reinforcement, that we're living in a new world--the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than it was even 20 years ago. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. This book is Alan Greenspan's reckoning with the nature of this new world--how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill--channeled through his own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure.--From publisher description.

Introduction --1. City kid -- 2. The making of an economist -- 3. Economics meets politics -- 4. Private citizen -- 5. Black Monday -- 6. The fall of the wall -- 7. A Democrat's agenda -- 8. Irrational exuberance -- 9. Millennium fever -- 10. Downturn -- 11. The nation challenged -- 12. The universals of economic growth -- 13. The modes of capitalism -- 14. The choices that await China -- 15. The tigers and the elephant -- 16. Russia's sharp elbows -- 17. Latin America and populism -- 18. Current accounts and debt -- 19. Globalization and regulation -- 20. The "conundrum" -- 21. Education and income inequality -- 22. The world retires. But can it afford to? -- 23. Corporate governance -- 24. The long-term energy squeeze -- 25. The Delphic future -- Acknowledgments -- A note on sources -- Index.