The Wealth of Shadows
Ratings4
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings4
Average rating3.5
1939. Ansel Luxford has everything a person could want—a comfortable career, a brilliant spouse, a beautiful new baby. But he is obsessed by a belief that Europe is on the precipice of a war that will grow to consume the world. The United States is officially proclaiming neutrality in any foreign conflict, but when Ansel is offered an opportunity to move to Washington, D.C., to join a clandestine project within the Treasury Department that is working to undermine Nazi Germany, he uproots his family overnight and takes on the challenge of a lifetime.
How can they defeat the enemy without firing a bullet?
To thwart the Nazis, Ansel and his team invent a powerful new theater of battle: economic warfare. Money is a dangerous weapon, and Ansel’s efforts will plunge him into a world full of peril and deceit. He will crisscross the globe to broker backroom deals, undertake daring heists, and spar with titans of industry like J.P. Morgan and the century’s greatest economic mind, Britain’s John Maynard Keynes. When Ansel’s wife takes a job with the FBI to hunt for spies within the government, the need for subterfuge extends to the home front. And Ansel discovers that he might be closer to those spies than he could ever imagine.
The Wealth of Shadows is a mind-expanding historical novel about the mysterious powers of money, the lies worth telling to defeat evil, and a hidden war that shaped the modern world.
Reviews with the most likes.
I'm going to jump straight into this review and ask the question I've been asking myself from page one: Why is a book set in 1939 opening with a quote about Bitcoin? On the one hand, I understand it. The book has a focus on money, knowledge, power, wealth, etc. and that could be an attempt at a modern perspective. On the other, it set a tone of confusion that I didn't shake, especially with continued quotes that sometimes only slightly correlated with the chapter it was opening. Ansel Luxford, a tax attorney, fears the worst for Germany at the close of the 1930s. At this point in time, America is neutral in the conflict and in foreign affairs, yet Ansel finds himself being called up to join a Washington underground team to fight the Nazis. Instead of using weapons, they play to the economy, or, ‘economic warfare'. The concept? Unique and I'm sure intriguing to some. Unfortunately, I discovered while reading that I don't have much interest in economics. It was a new perspective on the war for me, though, so that was a big takeaway. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with a free digital ARC of the book!
