Beautifully written history of Great Crash told with wit.
Gailbraith's book is an insightful and witty history of the Great Crash of 1929. Though written years ago it seems as if it could have been written yestereday and there are many parallels of course with the economic "meltdown" that is going on around us. I can't really fault the book as it is about the Great Crash, but I wish there were more about the long depression that followed and the path to recovery.
Great Book
Very interesting book, and well written.
There are some sad truths reveled, herein.
Scary to understand the similarities between then and now (1999 to 2008).
Can Americans Learn from History?
The Great Crash 1929
By John Kenneth Galbraith
The writing is surprisingly charming and readable; one senses that the author would be a gracious person. His 200-page description of the Wall Street crash is clear and as interesting as a story about financial history can be; much of it is necessarily a simple chronicle of the rise and fall of the various big stocks in that period. He describes the principal actors of the time--recognizable names like Mellon and Astor and JP Morgan--and goes into the human motives, mainly greed, that led to the crash.
Not until the final chapters does he begin to sum up the reasons for the Depression, claiming that the crash by itself would not have been enough to cause it. Had we had sound banking policies, more honest (i.e., less greedy) investors and better laws, a more equitable income distribution, and a better balance of trade, it could have been avoided.
The book is instructive and easy to read--although occasionally tedious--even for one not versed in finance and economics. One interesting aspect of the crash is the way the market would plummet one day, causing widespread panic, and then go back up the next day, forestalling the conclusion that all was lost, even though, in fact, it was. There were many dives and recoveries during the crash; even the worst day saw a later recovery. This seemed to lead to a state of suspended disbelief; even though some people committed suicide or otherwise acknowledged ruin, others kept investing. We learn that prominent bankers bought their own stock and manipulated the market in order to bolster public confidence, then covertly got out of the market. The most common theme--and the one on which the author ends the book--is that people seem to be unable to learn, long-term, by past mistakes, and that we continue to hear that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong." Americans seem to believe the illusion that everyone can get rich, and that a boom, in spite of all past experience to the contrary, will be permanent.
Essential, Elegant Book on The Great Depression
Author John Gailbreath's extraordinary book on The Great Depression is a fascinating read for both the occasional reader who simply wants to know more about a period in which Americans struggled mightily to lift themselves from an extremely difficult economic collapse - and for the professional in any economic/financial field (who should consider it required reading!) Lucid, brilliant, sometimes wryly funny, always accurate, it is one of Nobel Prize-winning Gailbreath's finest works. DO GET IT -- you won't be sorry, and you will get more than a glimpse on economic bubbles-and-bursts (and their sad aftermaths) -- as well as why these are apt to keep occuring as long as men choose to speculate in markets...! YES, I'll read it again, before shelving it carefully for later browsing. A great buy from a superb vendor!
...it was the worst of times
I keep this book around to read occasionally. My edition has a printing history going back to 1954. The stock market crash is a point in history that I've tried to understand. mmm...the bankers kept pumping money into the system...until they couldn't do it anymore. Who were these people and how did this happen? Well, today I picked it up again.
According to Galbraith, the US economy was already in a Depression by October 1929 as the stock market reacts to the economy and never the reverse. It became fashionable for working people to get into the stock market. Before the crash, there were some signs of economic downturn, but no one expected the disaster it became. It was a bubble that had to be pricked. This sounds so familiar now.
In John Kenneth Galbraith's able hands, the story is revealed. Galbraith was, along with other talents, an excellent writer and storyteller. Not a huge book full of dry details but a story brought to life. Recommended reading.
