Adam LeBor

Budapest, otoño de 1943. Mientras Europa se desangra, la capital húngara parece vivir en una burbuja tan seductora como peligrosa. Aliada de la Alemania nazi, la ciudad es el gran cruce de caminos de la Europa central: un escenario donde se entremezclan diplomaticos, espias, traficantes y agentes de todas las potencias. En los cafes del Danubio todavia suenan conversaciones y musica; los teatros siguen abiertos y la vida cultural se aferra a la normalidad. Para prisioneros de guerra aliados y para refugiados polacos y judios, Budapest continua siendo un refugio improbable, una isla de calma en mitad del desastre.Pero todo se derrumba en marzo de 1944, cuando los nazis ocupan la ciudad. A partir de ese momento, la violencia yel miedo avanzan sin freno: bombardeos que reducen a escombros sus avenidas, deportaciones, casas marcadas conla Estrella Amarilla, guetos y escuadrones de la muerte que convierten las calles en una trampa. Cuando el EjercitoRojo la rodea, comienza uno de los asedios mas brutales de la guerra.Con diarios y documentos ineditos, material de archivo y las voces de los ultimos testigos, Adam LeBor reconstruye la caida de Budapest con pulso narrativo y precision historica.A traves de personajes inolvidables una actriz celebre, un adolescente judio rebelde, una medica que arriesga todo, aristocratas, contrabandistas y oficiales de las SS, este libro cuenta como una ciudad luminosa se apaga lentamente hasta desaparecer.

La turbia y apasionante historia del Banco Internacional de Pagos • El club de los gobernadores de bancos centrales, caracterizado por su secretismo • Sepa quienes gobiernan desde la sombra ¿Sabía qu

Yael Azoulay does the United Nations dirty work. From the caves of Afghanistan and the slums of Baghdad to the worlds corporate boardrooms, Yaels job is to broker the secret deals that grease the wheels of superpower diplomacy and big business. When a suspicious death at the UN headquarters in Manhattan is covered up, Yael decides that the ends no longer justify the means and she goes rogue. Events quickly spiral out of control as Yael is forced on the run in the streets of New York and Geneva. Hunted by the worlds intelligence and law enforcement agencies, Yael must ultimately learn that salvation means not just saving others lives but slaying her own inner demons. A gripping journey through the secret corridors of power. The best Adam LeBor to date the world he creates is driven by the sharp edge of reality - by the raw, brutal politi, by the monsters and desperate heroes -- Alan Furst A classic, fast-paced thriller Get ready to be entertained -- Olen Steinhauer Adam LeBor has done it again. Gripping and atmospheric -- Charles Cumming

Los banqueros secretos de Hitler es una riguosa obra de investigación y, sobre todo, una denuncia de cómo el sistema financiero suizo no dudó en su momento en apoyar el esfuerzo de guerra nazi a traves de su colaboracion financiera. De algun modo, una obra desmitificadora y absolutamente necesaria para mantener la memoria historica de un episodio tan oscuro como estremecedor. Encuadernacion: rustica con solapas.

How America fell for financier Bernie Madoffs $65 billion investment scam.It was luxurious Palm Beach, by the manicured lawns and Olympic-sized swimming pool, that financier Bernard Madoff ravaged the world of philanthropy and high society he had strived so hard to join, vaporising the assets of charities, foundations and individuals that had trusted him with their funds. It seems nothing was sacrosanct to Madoff, possibly the greatest con-man in history. Even Elie Wiesels foundation has lost tens of millions. How could Madoff, a pillar of the Jewish community, do this to a Nobel Laureate and Auschwitz survivor? But Wiesel was hardly alone in trusting the rogue financier. How could some of the most sophisticated and worldly people in America fall victim to a collective delusion for year after year? THE BELIEVERS answers these unsettling questions. It opens up the clubbish world where Madoff operated, tracing the links from Palm Beach and The Hamptons to the salons and clubs of Manhattan society. It details the network of relationships across which flows hundreds of millions of dollars. The Believers shows how despite material success and acclaim, some human impulses remain eternal. It reveals how an underlying sense of insecurity still shapes some of the richest and most successful individuals in America, making them crave ever more status and peer acclaim. By focusing on Madoffs connection to, and catastrophic impact on, the American Jewish community, THE BELIEVERS dramatically humanises a story that is part financial scandal and part Greek tragedy.

An absorbing and thorough examination of the Bank for International Settlements, one of the worlds most important yet opaque institutions (Reuters)Tower of Basel is the first investigative history of the worlds most secretive global financial institution. Based on extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with key decision-makers -- including Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve; Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England; and former senior Bank for International Settlements managers and officials -- Tower of Basel tells the inside story of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS): the central bankers own bank. Created by the governors of the Bank of England and the Reichsbank in 1930, and protected by an international treaty, the BIS and its assets are legally beyond the reach of any government or jurisdiction. The bank is untouchable. Swiss authorities have no jurisdiction over the bank or its premises. The BIS has just 140 customers but made tax-free profits of 1.17 billion in 2011-2012. Since its creation, the bank has been at the heart of global events but has often gone unnoticed. Under Thomas McKittrick, the banks American president from 1940-1946, the BIS was open for business throughout the Second World War. The BIS accepted looted Nazi gold, conducted foreign exchange deals for the Reichsbank, and was used by both the Allies and the Axis powers as a secret contact point to keep the channels of international finance open. After 1945 the BIS -- still behind the scenes -- for decades provided the necessary technical and administrative support for the trans-European currency project, from the first attempts to harmonize exchange rates in the late 1940s to the launch of the Euro in 2002. It now stands at the center of efforts to build a new global financial and regulatory architecture, once again proving that it has the power to shape the financial rules of our world. Yet despite its pivotal role in the financial and political history of the last century and during the economic current crisis, the BIS has remained largely unknown -- until now.

In this new international thriller from the author of The Geneva Option, UN covert negotiator Yael Azoulay is drawn into a web of betrayal and intrigue that leads from deep within Americas military-industrial complex to the Middle East and beyond.Yael Azoulay went rogue in Geneva and nearly lost her life; although her physical wounds are healed, she will never be able to forget what happened. Now back in New York, when the secretary-general asks her to meet with the CEO of the Prometheus Group, a lobbying and asset management firm with extensive links to the Pentagon and dubious business interests in the volatile Middle East, she cannot refuse his request.Working under Prometheuss radar, Yael uncovers a chilling conspiracy with ties to Iran . . . and to a shocking source from her past. The end game is nothing less than a devastatingand very lucrativenew war in the Middle East. But the closer she comes to the truth, the more Yael begins to expose herself, revealing a life riddled with secrets. As she confronts the ghosts of her past, the few certainties of her life begin to crumble around her, laying bare a terrifying truth: that she has enormously powerful enemies who neither forgive, nor forget.

Nazi-occupied Budapest, Winter 1944. The Russians are smashing through the German lines. Miklos Farkas breaks out of the Jewish ghetto to find food - at the Nazis headquarters. There he is handed a stolen copy of The Budapest Protocol, detailing the Nazis post-war plans. Miklos knows it must stay hidden forever if he is to stay alive. Present day Budapest. As the European Union launches the election campaign for the first President of Europe, Miklos Farkas is brutally murdered. His journalist grandson Alex buries his grief to track down the killers. He soon unravels a chilling conspiracy rooted in the dying days of the Third Reich, one that will ensure Nazi economic domination of Europe - and a plan for a new Gypsy Holocaust. The hunt is on for The Budapest Protocol. Alex is soon drawn deeper into a deadly web of intrigue and power play, a game played for the highest stakes: the very future of Europe. The Budapest Protocol is a journey into Europes hidden heart of darkness.

La turbia y apasionante historia del Banco Internacional de Pagos. El club de los gobernadores de bancos centrales, caracterizado por su secretismo. Sepa quienes gobiernan desde la sombra ¿Sabía que hay un banco creado en 1930 a raiz de un tratado internacional y que: ¿no es legalmente responsable ante ningun gobierno o jurisdiccion? ¿durante la segunda guerra mundial, fue esencial para que el gobierno nazi pudiera estabilizar sus finanzas y comerciar internacionalmente? ¿durante la posguerra ayudo a reconstruir Europa? ¿sus funcionarios han sido los inventores del Euro? ¿actualmente funciona como un selecto club de los banqueros centrales de los paises mas importantes del mundo? ¿dicta las normas de Basilea que regulan el sector bancario? ¿su actual Director General es quien fuera Gobernador del Banco Central de España del 2000 al 2006, es decir el periodo durante el cual se propulso la burbuja inmobiliaria en España? Este es el primer libro que relata la increible historia del banco menos conocido del mundo, que ha dirigido desde la sombra buena parte del destino economico del planeta de los ultimos 80 años.

Budapest autumn 1943 Four years into the war Hungary is allied with Nazi Germany and the Hungarian capital is the Casablanca of central Europe The city swirls with intrigue and betrayal home to spies and agents of every kind But Budapest remains at peace an oasis in the midst of war where Allied POWs and Polish and Jewish refugees find sanctuary The riverside cafes are crowded and the city s famed cultural life still thrives All that comes to an end in March 1944 when the Nazis invade By the summer Allied bombers are pounding its grand boulevards and historic squares Budapest s surviving Jewish population has been forcibly relocated to cramped overcrowded Yellow Star houses By late December the city is surrounded and under siege from the Red Army Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians die in the savage siege as Budapest collapses into anarchy Hungarian death squads roam the streets as the city s Jews are forced into ghettos Russian artillery pounds the city into smoking rubble as starving residents hack chunks of meat from dead frozen horses Using newly uncovered diaries documents archival material and interviews with the last survivors Adam LeBor brilliantly recreates life and death in the wartime city the catastrophic fate of half of its

Budapest September 1944 The Hungarian capital lies in the eye of the storm Three months after D Day the Allies are making significant strides through Europe For Stalin Budapest is Moscow s gateway to the West For Hitler the city is a crucial bastion where the Russian s advance must be stopped Squeezed between the two sides with the Red Army advancing Budapest and its inhabitants will soon pay a terrible price Large parts of the city s Jewish population has already been deported to Auschwitz by the chillingly efficient Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann This is the climax of Adam LeBor s epic history of Budapest during the war the story of an authoritarian regime allied with Hitler that also tried to keep in for as long as possible with the Allies It is a tale full of spies like the British agent Basil Davidson of brave Hungarian aristocrats smuggling people and information out of Nazi occupied Poland of bureaucrats having it both ways and getting sucked into the disaster of the German invasion of Russia From then until the apocalyptic end game Budapest became a more and more dangerous place for Jews anti fascists and ordinary people The events culminate in the Siege of Budapest the 50 day battle in which 38 000 civilians and 100 000 Soviet troops were