Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan promised on Friday to deliver surprises and insights about the future in an eagerly awaited book, but he gave little away for now beyond saying interest rates were low.

Greenspan, who can still move markets with the slightest word, said he would bring to bear the lessons learned steering the world`s biggest economy to discuss his views on the future in the book to be published in September.

He said the prevalence of low interest rates throughout the world was one of the things that surprised him as he came to the conclusion of his book, "The Age of Turbulence."

The former Fed chief admitted he wrote much of the book in the bath tub in long-hand notes that were dutifully transcribed from damp sheets of paper by an assistant.

The book, to be published by Penguin on September 17, will examine his 18-1/2 years at the helm of the U.S. central bank.

"I`m not holding back in the book," he said at a publishing convention in New York. "There are a lot of surprises in the book."

Greenspan said he set out to write a memoir, from childhood to his time as adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and then as the world`s most influential economist, but ended up writing an analytical book about both the past and the future.

"When I got to look at the future there were very unusual things going on now," said Greenspan.

"Interest rates in the United States are low, but they are low all over the world, including developing nations which never saw single-digit interest rates," he added, answering a question from NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, who is also his wife and who conducted the on-stage interview.

FAN OF SARKOZY

Greenspan said he was particularly encouraged about the outlook for Europe amid a political changing of the guard.

Of France`s newly elected president, Nicolas Sarkozy, Greenspan said, "He struck me as very smart, very French and, I thought, pro-American." He said he had known Sarkozy from his tenure as French finance minister.

"Pro-American in the sense that I think he admires the American economy and what we`ve accomplished," Greenspan said.

He spoke warmly of Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Britain`s finance minister, Gordon Brown, who is due to take over from Prime Minister Tony Blair on June 27.

"I think we`re going to find the three of them hold a very great deal in common, which is going to mold a new Europe that is going to move in a more vibrant way," Greenspan said.

"It`s the first good sign I`ve seen about the long-term future of Europe."

Commenting on his past as Fed chief, Greenspan gave unusual insights into the often opaque style of communication that became his trademark in testimony before Congress.

"I got people asking questions that I couldn`t and shouldn`t answer because there are certain answers no matter how you phrase them and what you do have a market effect," he said.

"I found that where I got a question and got myself into a position where I didn`t, couldn`t and was not going to answer, I fell back into lapsed syntax and all sorts of ways in which the senator or congressman would think I was saying something terribly profound and think I answered his question."

He also said he proposed to his wife, Mitchell, five times before she realized what he was asking her.

Greenspan said one of the most important lessons he learned came after the September 11 attacks.

Though the U.S. economy stumbled, it proved to be "far more flexible" than he had thought it was.

"Because we can`t forecast crises or events like the stock market crash in 1987 or 9/11, we must be prepared and capable of absorbing shocks," Greenspan said.

Penguin has not disclosed the terms of its contract with Greenspan, but when it was announced in March 2006, publishing industry sources said bids from top publishers had topped $8 million.