A Global Life

As we are all beaming our love towards Westchester and brother George, who it sounds like it transitioning into a hospice facility, I have been slogging my way through the autobiography of James Wolfensohn, former head of the World Bank. I have no idea where I got this book, but I'm sure I didn't pay retail for it. In many ways Wolfensohn was like the Forrest Gump of finance, he went everywhere and met and knew everyone, starting as a poor kid of Jewish emigres to Australia who had been close to Rothschilds for a spell back in England but then never quite made money in the new world.

I suspect that many people in power in the global centers thereof actually know just as many people as Wolfensohn does, they just don't go on and on about it in their autobiographies. In all likelihood, the book would be better if he spent less time prattling on about who he knew and more about the intricacies of what he did. Still, he seems like a nice enough guy, except when he's continually repeating mea culpas about how his business activities kept him away from his kids and his wife. Like when he was about to start leading the Kennedy Center but his wife found out she needed chemo for breast cancer. You can guess what he did. Somehow his marriage survived and his kids don't end up hating him, at least as he tells it.

I'm still hoping to learn a little more about development finance since that's the whole reason I read this book. I'm about 3/5ths done. We shall see.