| The great crash, 1929 |  | Author: John Kenneth Galbraith
Publisher: Time
Category: Book
Buy Used: $22.00
Rating:  53 reviews
Sales Rank: 132885
Edition: Time reading program special ed
Pages: 207
ASIN: B0007EAYPK
Publication Date: 1962
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Publisher: HOUGHTON & MIFFLlIN Co.Date of Publication: 1962Binding: Soft CoverCondition: Very GoodDescription: 8vo - over 7?" - 9?" Tall The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn starting in most places in 1929 and ending at different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries. It was the largest and most important economic depression in modern history, and is used in the 21st century as a benchmark in how far the world's economy can fall. The Great Depression originated in the United States; historians most often use as a starting date the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known asBlack Tuesday. The end of the depression in the U.S. is associated with the onset of the war economy of World War II , beginning around 1939.
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Amazon.com Review
Rampant speculation. Record trading volumes. Assets bought not because of their value but because the buyer believes he can sell them for more in a day or two, or an hour or two. Welcome to the late 1920s. There are obvious and absolute parallels to the great bull market of the late 1990s, writes Galbraith in a new introduction dated 1997. Of course, Galbraith notes, every financial bubble since 1929 has been compared to the Great Crash, which is why this book has never been out of print since it became a bestseller in 1955. Galbraith writes with great wit and erudition about the perilous actions of investors, and the curious inaction of the government. He notes that the problem wasn't a scarcity of securities to buy and sell; "the ingenuity and zeal with which companies were devised in which securities might be sold was as remarkable as anything." Those words become strikingly relevant in light of revenue-negative start-up companies coming into the market each week in the 1990s, along with fragmented pieces of established companies, like real estate and bottling plants. Of course, the 1920s were different from the 1990s. There was no safety net below citizens, no unemployment insurance or Social Security. And today we don't have the creepy investment trusts--in which shares of companies that held some stocks and bonds were sold for several times the assets' market value. But, boy, are the similarities spooky, particularly the prevailing trend at the time toward corporate mergers and industry consolidations--not to mention all the partially informed people who imagined themselves to be financial geniuses because the shares of stock they bought kept going up. --Lou Schuler
Product Description
This work examines the 'gold-rush fantasy' in American psychology and describes its dire consequences. The Florida land boom, the operations of Insull, Kreuger and Hatry, and the Shandoah Corporation all come together in Galbraith's study of concerted human greed and folly.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 48 more reviews...
 Beautifully written history of Great Crash told with wit. December 29, 2008
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 December 22, 2008
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? December 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 December 19, 2008
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 December 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
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