In the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, in his fourteenth year as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan took part in a very quiet collective effort to ensure that America didn't experience an economic meltdown, taking the rest of the world with it. There was good reason to fear the worst: the stock market crash of October 1987, his first major crisis as Federal Reserve Chairman, coming just weeks after he assumed control, had come much closer than is even today generally known to freezing the financial system and triggering a genuine financial panic. But the most remarkable thing that happened to the economy after 9/11 was...nothing. What in an earlier day would have meant a crippling shock to the system was absorbed astonishingly quickly. 

2001年9月11日之后，在他担任美联储董事会主席的第14个年头里，格林斯潘参加了一个非常安静的集体努力，以确保美国不会经历一场经济崩溃，并将世界其他地区也带到了一起。我们有充分的理由担心最坏的情况：1987年10月的股市崩盘，这是他担任美联储主席后几周内首次出现的重大危机，比今天人们所知的冻结金融系统和引发真正的金融恐慌的程度要近得多。但9/11事件后发生在经济上的最显著的事情是……什么都没有。在早些时候，这意味着对金融体系的严重冲击被迅速吸收。

《动荡年代:冒险新世界》是“美元总统”、前美联储主席艾伦·格林斯潘的惟一自传。鉴于美联储的许多重要文告（献）是由格林斯潘亲自起草，而且格氏也是‘ECONOMIST’《经济学人》（又译为《经济学家》）等世界知名财经刊物的未署名作者，其行文表述为经济界的主流话语，更重要的是，格林斯潘主导美联储十八年创造了高增长低通胀的经济奇迹！由次贷引发的全球金融和经济危机发生之初，针对格林斯潘的指责甚嚣尘上，可是，拯救危机的办法却是格林斯潘在任时的那一套，且有过之而无不及。格林斯潘又回来了！客观地看，格林斯潘是以后经济系学生永远绕不过去的人。