Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Wiley Investment Classics) |  | Authors: Charles P. Kindleberger, Robert Aliber
Creator: Robert Solow
Publisher: Wiley
List Price: $21.95
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Rating:  59 reviews
Sales Rank: 5776
Media: Paperback
Edition: 5
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0471467146
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.542
EAN: 9780471467144
ASIN: 0471467146
Publication Date: October 4, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780471467144 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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| Also Available In:
| • | Paperback - Manias, Panics, And Crashes: A History Of Financial Crises, Revised Edition | | • | Paperback - Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Wiley Investment Classics) | | • | Hardcover - Manias Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises | | • | Paperback - Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises | | • | Hardcover - Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises | | • | Paperback - Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Wiley Investment Classics Series) | | • | Hardcover - Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crisis (Wiley Investment Classics) | | • | Hardcover - Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Wiley Investment Classics) | | • | School & Library Binding - Manias, Panics, And Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Wiley Investment Classics) |
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Product Description
Manias, Panics, and Crashes, Fifth Edition is an engaging and entertaining account of the way that mismanagement of money and credit has led to financial explosions over the centuries. Covering such topics as the history and anatomy of crises, speculative manias, and the lender of last resort, this book puts the turbulence of the financial world in perspective. The updated fifth edition expands upon each chapter, and includes two new chapters focusing on significant financial crises of the last fifteen years.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 59
 Great Qualitative Explanation of Business Cycles January 26, 2010
Rufus Burgess (Upstate, NY)
Kindleberger does an excellent job at explaining the history of Western "Manias, Panics, and Crashes". He holds that "the a priori assumption of rational markets and consequently the impossibility of destabilizing speculation are difficult to sustain with any extensive reading of economic history". Kindleberger then goes on to explain why the shallow assumption of Milton Friedman and other neoclassical economists are flawed.
Kindleberger takes a qualitative approach to economic history that is widely assessable. The people who gain the most from this work will typically be non-economists. All of his examples deal with descriptions of historical events. Unfortunately, most of the pre-19th century panics lack comparable statistics. When Kindleberger does use statistics he uses them intertwined with prose.
For those wishing to understand the theoretical construct behind Kindleberger's approach Hyman Minsky's 'John Maynard Keynes' and 'Stabilizing an Unstable Economy' are must reads. Minsky's work is more mathematical but still highly accessible for anyone educated in economics.
"Manias, Panics, and Crashes" is a great work that empirically shows that speculative finance alters the business cycle. Unfortunately, it fails theoretically to explain why.
Book Review from the Aleph Blog January 23, 2010
David Merkel (Ellicott City, MD United States)
Sometimes we forget how bad it can be, and then we howl over minor bad times in the markets. We may be past a mania in residential housing, but we have not really experienced a panic or crash yet. People squeal over how bad the equity market is, but recently we haven't had anything like the 2000-2002 experience, much less the 1973-1974 or 1929-1932 experience.
Two books come to mind when I think about disaster in a non-fear-mongering way: Manias, Panics, and Crashes, by Charles Kindleberger, and Devil Take the Hindmost, by Edward Chancellor. They take two different approaches to the topic, and those approaches complement each othe, giving a fuller picture. Chancellor takes a historical approach, while Kindleberger deals with the structures of financial crises.
From Chancellor, you will see that manias and their subsequent fallout are endemic to Western culture. Someone living a full life over the last 300+ years would see one or two big ones, and numerous small ones. Relatively free societies give people freedom to make mistakes. Given the way that people chase performance, we can all make mistakes as a group, with large booms and busts. Much as the regulators might want to tame it, they can pretty much only affect what kind of crisis we get, and not whether we get one. He is somewhat prescient in suggesting that the leverage inherent in derivatives post-LTCM could be the next crisis. This book is a better one if you like the stories, and don't want to dig into the theories.
But if you like trying to place the manias, panics, and crashes on a common grid, to see their similarities, Kindleberger has written the book for you. In it he draws on a number of common factors:
* Loose monetary policy
* People chase the performance of the speculative asset
* Speculators make fixed commitments buying the speculative asset
* The speculative asset's price gets bid up to the point where it costs money to hold the positions
* A shock hits the system, a default occurs, or monetary policy starts contracting
* The system unwinds, and the price of the speculative asset falls leading to
* Insolvencies with those that borrowed to finance the assets
* A lender of last resort appears to end the cycle
I liked them both, but I am an economic history buff, and a bit of a wonk. The benefit of both books is that they will make you more aware of how financial crises come to be, and what the qualitative signs tend to manifest during the boom and bust phases of the overall speculation cycle.
 ok but boring book November 30, 2009
Thamanjimmy (Jacksonville, Florida)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a very informative book, however, it is extremely boring. The writing just makes an interesting topic completely boring.
Good book nonetheless and worthy of a read.
Better appreciated after having familiarity with multiple financial crisis September 5, 2009
1000Books (NY,NY)
A scholarly and entertaining account of the way that mismanagement of money and credit has led to financial explosions over the centuries. Covering such topics as the history and anatomy of crises, speculative manias, and the lender of last resort, this book has been hailed as "a true classic...both timely and timeless." The updated fifth edition expands upon each chapter, and includes two new chapters covering significant crises of the last fifteen years around the world.
History Really Does Ryme August 14, 2009
Matthew P. Jarvis (Federal Way, WA)
I am always amazed how often history repeats itself and how quickly we forget. This book provides an amazing history of the credit markets for the last several hundred years. This should have been required reading for government officials and banks executives.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 59
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