Promise to Pay (Vol. I): Banks, Battles & Bellies

 In his latest book, ‘Promise to Pay (Vol. I): Banks, Battles, and Bellies,’ Masood Rezvi lays bare the threads connecting banks to the funding of wars and the hunger so prevalent in large pockets of the population around the world. Unlike his earlier book “Tightening Noose of Poverty” where he draws mainly on his personal experience in rural banking in India, the current title tells a story spanning over four centuries of wars, famines, and banking intertwined in a meshwork of socio-economics. The narrative is supported by meticulously collected data from a diverse cross-section of sources. He convincingly argues that ‘banks and their power to create money out of thin air’ lie at the heart of major global issues. In this first volume, he lays the foundation of a larger narrative presenting a mechanism, not so hidden in the plain sight, of how the global financial market has been fueling major crises that the world is grappling today. From the funding of the British Raj of the pre-World War India by the Bank of England to the rise of the Federal Reserve, the author presents a picture of a roller-coaster ride the banks have been taking the world on. He steers clear through the mind-boggling cliché of the mainstream narrative of the current financial world order and puts the reader in charge by putting things in perspective. History is where the mold of the present is created, and Masood Rezvi has done his job well in describing that mold to make sense of the present. While the book has all the technical details necessary to navigate through the labyrinths of the financial system, the author has been extremely careful to present them in a manner comprehensible for a non-expert reader. The experts, on the other hand, will find the narrative refreshing in its approach, technical precision, and conclusions. This book is another step towards dissecting the mechanism of the current financial system that has created a divide between the rich and the poor, a gap too wide to be filled with just the promises to pay.