In 2006, Ben Bernanke was appointed chair of the Federal Reserve, the apex of a personal journey from small-town South Carolina to prestigious academic appointments and finally public service in Washington's halls of power. There would be no time to celebrate. The bursting of a housing bubble in 2007 exposed the hidden vulnerabilities of the global financial system, bringing it to the brink of meltdown. From the implosion of the investment bank Bear Stearns to the unprecedented bailout of insurance giant AIG, efforts to arrest the financial contagion consumed Bernanke and his team at the Fed as they tried to keep the United States and world economies afloat. Working with two U.S. presidents, and under fire from a fractious Congress and a public incensed by behavior on Wall Street, the Fed -- alongside colleagues in the Treasury Department -- stabilized a teetering financial system, preventing an economic collapse of unimaginable scale. Rich with detail of the decision-making process in Washington, The Courage to Act recounts and explains the worst financial crisis and economic slump in America since the Great Depression.