The Age of Fallibility [antikvár]

PrologueMany people dream about making the world a better place, but I have been fortunate in being able to fulfill my dreams more than most. That said, my influence has been greatly exaggerated. I was labeled "the man who broke the Bank of England" when the United Kingdom was forced to leave the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Mohamed Mahatir, the former prime minister of Malaysia, accused me of causing the Asian financial crisis of 1997. President Vladimir Putin of Russia holds me responsible for the so-called color revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. And I was accused of trying to buy the election after I took a stand against the reelection of President George W. Bush in 2004. All these claims are overstated, or unfounded. For instance, I did not trade in Asian currencies for several months prior to the crisis so I could not have caused it. But the fact remains that I did play a role in some of these events, and many others. My foundations were active in the countries that formed part of the Soviet empire and supported the forces striving to turn those countries into open societies. They provided some cushion for culture, education, and science when the monolith of the communist state collapsed. They helped educate a new, self-conscious Roma (gypsy) elite. The Decade of Roma Inclusion, which brought together nine