Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Wiley Investment Classics)
Author: Charles P. Kindleberger
List Price: $19.95
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ISBN: 0471389455
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (12 January, 2001)
Sales Rank: 8,993
Average Customer Rating: 3.22 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 2 out of 5
Disappointing and non-useful
The subtitle of this book, "A History of Financial Crises", is misleading since the book is actually a *commentary* on the history of financial crises. As such, it assumes that the reader is already familiar with the history of financial crises from 1600 to the present. The book is organized by the phases of a financial crisis, resulting in a near-complete lack of chronological coherence. The author may typically be talking about the Dutch tulip mania of 1636 in one sentence and the panic of 1907 in the next sentence, a style which quickly becomes exasperating. The overall purpose of the book appears to be the promotion of a thesis favoring the concept of a "lender of last resort" in order to mitigate financial crises. Consequently the book reads like an academic treatise, which is basically what it is. This approach is, in this reviewer's opinion, self-indulgent on the part of the author who appears to be addressing a readership primarily in academia, government and perhaps a limited segment of the banking industry. This book is neither instructive nor useful for the general reader.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Sorry amazon, I read the library's copy...
I'm puzzled by some of the negative comments about this book here, as I'm neither an economist nor a historian and I found the book quite accessible and interesting. The fairly predictable sequence of events leading to crashes, which have been played out many times in the past, is the book's central theme. Some of the story-telling could even be described as fascinating at times, though my knowledge of the subject was pretty much limited to what one learns of the famed `29 crash in high school american history.Anyway, the critics here are not entirely wrong, though I think they're being a bit nit-picky. I don't think the widely-read and educated lay-person should be scared off. I liked the book, learned something significant from it, was mildly entertained and impressed by the author's plethora of knowledge, and occasionally recommend it to those with an interest in financial markets, especially their so-called irrational side.
Rating: 5 out of 5
An elegant and informed look at markets
Kindelberger's work is a classic study of speculative bubbles and their consequences, and should be read as such. From the first, this is a book that aims to seperate market moves from genuine crises - important in an age were there is a tendancy for the media to seek to dramatise the mundane in order to winn a BAFTA. The definitions provide a framework for examining the development of an irrational interlude in financial markets.Kindelberger's analysis is not, therefore, a classic "history" primer for the curious - there is no spoonfeeding of facts, for that is not what the book sets out to present. Instead, this is an elegant and informed look at what how financial markets have departed from the course theoretical "rational" behaviour suggests that they should have taken. For all that, it is still an accessible text to those who take a casual interest in financial markets.
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