Manias, Panics, and Crashes
The continuing popularity of Manias, Panics, and Crashes depicts that financial crises continue to be a matter of widespread concern. This Charles Kindleberger's brilliant, panoramic history of the pattern of market developments remains at utmost significance in today’s market condition. It accounts the five stages in the evolution of a financial crisis and probes the sequence of four waves of crises that devastated more than forty countries since the early 1980s. It shows that letdowns of banking systems do not result from the decisions of 'bad actors' but instead are indicative of a dysfunctional international monetary arrangement.
"The turmoil of 2007-8 reminded us only too painfully that financial crises are not confined to distant times and places. This latest edition of Charlie Kindleberger's classic study of man's serial financial follies, updated by Robert Aliber, brings the story right up to the present. A fount of wisdom not only for students of finance and economics, but also for central bankers and financial market practitioners."
— Professor Sir Charles Bean, The London School of Economics, UK
"Since its original publication, this has been one of my indispensable books. It served to help me grasp the gravity of financial crises that afflicted my country and guided me, hopefully, to recommend and take better policy decisions. It has also been an essential teaching tool. For example, on 15 September 2008 I asked my students to read at once several chapters so that they could better understand the events that started to unfold that morning. I welcome with enthusiasm this new edition!"
— Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, Director Yale Center for the Study of Globalization; Former President of Mexico
"Underneath the hilarious anecdotes, the elegant epigrams, and the graceful turns of phrase, Kindleberger is deadly serious. The manner in which humans beings earn their livings is no laughing matter to him, especially when they attempt to do so at the expense of one another. As he so effectively demonstrates, manias, panics, and crashes are the consequence of an economic environment that cultivates cupidity, chicanery, and rapaciousness rather than a devout belief in the Golden Rule."
— From the Foreword to the Fourth Edition by Peter L. Bernstein, author of The Power of Gold
"Alas, both the need for a book such as Manias, Panics and Crashes, and the coverage of its material, keep on increasing, almost exponentially. So much has happened in the last few years that this is now Bob Aliber's book, as much as, perhaps more, than Charles Kindleberger's. Aliber has enhanced the prior high standards that Kindleberger set. This is an easily accessible book, filled with fascinating historical vignettes, and one that everyone from the experts to newcomers to the field should read and would profit greatly by doing so."