The Great Crash of 1929
by John Kenneth Galbraith
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List Price: $14.00
Our Price: $7.65
Your Save: $ 6.35 ( 45% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.54097309043
EAN: 9780395859995
ISBN: 0395859999
Label: Mariner Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 1997-04-30
Publisher: Mariner Books
Studio: Mariner Books
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, easy reading
Comment: This is an excellent book. Easy to read, humourous, and while written in the 50's, it could have been written yesterday. 2008 crash very similiar to 1929...it will be interesting to see if 2009 continues downwards as the sharemarkets of 1930-31 did.
Customer Rating:
Summary: sobering
Comment: Witty and sobering reminder of the perils of speculative investment -- gambling in a casino where no one and nothing is in charge -- and the professional and amateur floundering that follows the bursting of a bubble
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written history of Great Crash told with wit.
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Comment: 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).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Can Americans Learn from History?
Comment: 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.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, easy reading
Comment: This is an excellent book. Easy to read, humourous, and while written in the 50's, it could have been written yesterday. 2008 crash very similiar to 1929...it will be interesting to see if 2009 continues downwards as the sharemarkets of 1930-31 did.
Customer Rating:
Summary: sobering
Comment: Witty and sobering reminder of the perils of speculative investment -- gambling in a casino where no one and nothing is in charge -- and the professional and amateur floundering that follows the bursting of a bubble
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written history of Great Crash told with wit.
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Comment: 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).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Can Americans Learn from History?
Comment: 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.
Of Galbraith's classic examination of the 1929 financial collapse, the Atlantic Monthly said:"Economic writings are seldom notable for their entertainment value, but this book is. Galbraith's prose has grace and wit, and he distills a good deal of sardonic fun from the whopping errors of the nation's oracles and the wondrous antics of the financial community." Now, with the stock market riding historic highs, the celebrated economist returns with new insights on the legacy of our past and the consequences of blind optimism and power plays within the financial community.
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