A Global Life
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
As president of the Global Bank for a decade, James D Wolfensohn tackled global poverty with a passion and energy that made him a uniquely important figure in a fundamental arena of change.
In A Global Life, Wolfensohn tells his remarkable life story beginning with his boyhood in Australia. He became an Olympic fencer and a prominent banker in London and New York, eventually navigating Wall Street with uncommon skill. Chairman of Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center for many years, he is also an amateur cellist.
But it was his tenure at the World Bank that made him an international force. Wolfensohn motivated, schemed, charmed and bullied the constituencies at his command to broaden the distribution of the world's wealth. In 2005, he became in international envoy for Israel's disengagement from Gaza, overseeing a transition that tragically collapsed.
Now Wolfensohn bluntly assesses his successes and failures. He reflects on his intense and tumultuous decade at the Bank and on the causes of continuing poverty. Much more than a business story, this is a riveting account of a fascinating career and personality.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Now 76 years old, Wolfensohn (Voice of the World's Poor) has had a rich and varied life as an investment banker, chairman of Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, head of the World Bank, and finally advocate of peace as special envoy to the Middle East. The first third of the book is devoted to a fascinating chronicle of his early life growing up in a close-knit, middle-class Jewish family. His parents, who emigrated from Britain to Australia, faced tough financial times during the Great Depression and over-coddled the young Wolfensohn, expecting him to excel. Though he nearly flunked out of Sidney University, he ultimately earned a law degree and went on to receive an MBA at Harvard and become a U.S. citizen. He writes candidly of the mistakes he made during his long and successful career and the lessons they taught him. Married to his college sweetheart, with three children, he claims that the idea of writing this book, "grew out of a desire to leave a record of the events that shaped me" for his adult children, and in the hope that younger readers might be encouraged to "follow at least some part of the path taken."
