Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Foreword (p. vii)
• 1 Financial Crisis: a Hardy Perennial (p. 1)
• 2 Anatomy of a Typical Crisis (p. 21)
• 3 Speculative Manias (p. 33)
• 4 Fueling the Flames: the Expansion of Credit (p. 55)
• 5 The Critical Stage (p. 77)
• 6 Euphoria and Economic Booms (p. 97)
• 7 International Contagion (p. 106)
• 8 Bubble Contagion: Tokyo to Bangkok to New York (p. 123)
• 9 Frauds, Swindles, and the Credit Cycle (p. 143)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This is the latest edition of the classic volume (1st ed., CH, Nov'78) by the late MIT professor Charles Kindleberger. The fifth edition (2005) and this sixth edition have been coauthored with Aliber (emer., Univ. of Chicago, Booth School of Business). The first half dozen of the book's 15 chapters are quite similar to chapters in earlier editions and consider the typical pattern of financial crises: speculative manias, the expansion of credit, and the emergence--and bursting--of financial bubbles. Similarly, later chapters on domestic and international lenders of last resort are revisions of chapters that appeared in earlier editions. A chapter on frauds and swindles has been updated to include the Bernie Madoff episode. Further additions include chapters on modern financial bubbles during the last 40 years; the Lehman Brothers panic; and an epilogue speculating on the 2010-20 decade. Any library that does not own an earlier edition of this book should definitely acquire this edition. Given the additions that have been made since 2005, even libraries that own earlier editions should seriously consider acquiring this edition too. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. R. Grossman Wesleyan University

Kirkus Book Review

In this playful and discursive exercise in ""literary economics,"" MIT professor Charles Kindleberger dissects every major financial crisis from the bursting of the South Sea bubble in 1720 to the Great Depression of the 1930s. In his 1973 work, The Worm in Depression, 1929-1939, Kindleberger argued that the duration and intensity of the Great Depression could have been substantially lessened by judicious use of a lender of last resort. Now, drawing on a wealth of historical illustrations, Kindleberger finds that the most Severe depressions of the last 250 years had in common the absence of such an institution. Recommendation: assign the lender's task to the International Monetary Fund, or a similar international agency, and do it quickly before the imminent debt defaults of Third World countries or OPEC price increases catch us unprepared. Kindleberger favors the same policy on a national level. He cheerfully acknowledges, however, that ""the evidence is not abundant enough to admit of strong conclusions."" But, with a taxonomist's attention to detail, Kindleberger classifies, compares, and contrasts the available facts concerning the major manias, from the initial shock (e.g., the invasion of England by the Young Pretender in 1745) to the bank runs and plummeting prices of the genuine financial ""crash."" Though he elaborates on the more entertaining aspects of financial hysteria (Britain exported shiploads of ice skates to Brazil in 1808; Isaac Newton lost 20,000 pounds in the South Sea Bubble fiasco), Kindleberger makes some serious assertions critical of both Monetarists and Keynesians. With financial crises in evidence from New York to Great Britain to Zaire, Kindleberger's systematic approach is a valuable and timely one. And, since the bulk of the literature focuses on particular incidents, his comparative analysis fills a significant gap. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.