Nilesh Jasani's Reviews > Volcker: The Triumph of Persistence

'Volcker' arranges the events of the undeniably historic figure’s life neatly but stops short of probing the depths. The book reads like a chronicle of his actions without delving sufficiently into the motives and ideologies that shaped or propelled him, portraying him less as a person of conviction and more as a historical bystander. Furthermore, the book's reluctance to explore the counterfactuals or the aftermath of Volcker's decisions leaves a gap in understanding his true impact. Effectively, one gets the timeline of events but without a discourse on the essence of Volcker's legacy.

What Volcker did was unprecedented, and would not be attempted by any of his followers even if they had faced a similar problem. There was something about him that was not just a historic accident. While he benefitted both from Carter’s fading months that allowed him to carry out actions that could have been stifled by a stronger administration or from Reagan’s fiscal policies that helped kill inflation comprehensively for decades cementing Volcker’s reputation, it still required a different level of courage of conviction to do what he did.

The book could have discussed the money supply experiments in so many ways, including where they could have proved disastrous. The author could have explored the pieces of training of the man that led to such unorthodox actions. There is some discussion on all these topics, including the real-time views of others in the heydays of his actions, but little that would stand out as new or insightful.

The same is true about the oft-discussed long-term effects of his policies. They are universally praised, and the author could have easily included them without efforts for completion, but there too the book appears rushed. The only thing the author appears comfortable with is when he is discussing the events as they happened, and that’s what makes the book inadequate.