The Great Crash 1929
The Great Crash 1929 is a classical examination of the economic history leading up to the Wall Street Crash of 1929. It argues that the 1929 stock market crash was triggered by prevalent speculation in the stock market. The common denominator of all these speculative episodes is the belief of participants that they can become rich without work and that the tendency towards recurrent speculative orgy serves no useful purpose, but rather is deeply damaging to an economy. It was the author's belief that a good knowledge of what happened in 1929 was the best safeguard against its recurrence.
"Paints a vivid picture of how the supposedly rational capitalist system seemed to lose its collective mind, and it has spooky parallels with what we are witnessing now."
— Fortune
"[A] skilled analysis of that most memorable year in our economic history."
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Most intriguing for its depiction of the delusion that swept the culture, and the ways financiers and bankers, wishful academics and supine regulators willfully ignored reality and in the process encouraged the epic collapse of the stock market."
— New York Times