The History of Financial Disasters 1763-1995
General Editor: Mark Duckenfield
Volume Editors: Stefan Altorfer, Benedikt Koehler and Mark Duckenfield
978 1 85196 825 1: 234x156mm: £295.00/$520.00
Financial disasters have much to teach us both in terms of the societies and times in which they occurred and also their ramifications for our own times. Such sudden and catastrophic losses have always commanded considerable attention and have provided a wide range of fascinating documentary evidence.
This three-volume reset edition looks at the origins and consequences of seminal financial crises throughout history, combining original documents from nineteen financial disasters between 1763 and 1995 with academic interpretations of the major causes and consequences of each crisis. Rare public and private papers provide both source material on the background of each disaster as well as first-hand accounts of how contemporaries viewed and responded to unfolding events.
The set will appeal to economic, financial and political historians and anyone with an interest in the key economic and financial turning points that have shaped the western world.
- Includes works and correspondence of many significant political figures and economists such as William Pitt the Elder, Charles F Dunbar, Harold Wilson, Bill Clinton and Barry Eichengreen
- Full editorial apparatus includes a substantial general introduction, introductions to each volume, as well as headnotes to each crisis
- Fully consolidated index for the complete set in the final volume
- Includes newly transcribed unpublished material from major public archives including the Public Record Office and the Bank of England Archives
Contents
Volume 1: 1763–1840s
- The European Financial Crisis of 1763
- The European Crisis of 1772–3
- The Assignat Inflation during the French Revolution, 1789–97
- The Crisis of The Second Bank of the United States, 1818–19
- The London Crisis of 1825
- The Panic in the US of 1837
- Railway Mania in the 1840s
Contemporary sources (selection): Letter by R Wolters to Lord Liverpool (1763) (British Library Manuscript transcription); Memoirs of William Forbes (1803 [1859]); Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham (William Pitt the Elder) (1772–3); Louis Sébastien Mercier, New Picture of Paris (1800); François d’Ivernois, A Cursory View of the Assignats (1795); A Friendly Monitor, A Brief Review of the … Bank of the United States (1819); Anti-Bullionist, Inquiry into the Causes of the Present Commercial Embarrassments in the United States (1820); [Benjamin Disraeli] An Inquiry into the Plans, Progress, and Policy of the American Mining Companies (1825); Henry English, A Complete View of the Joint Stock Companies (1827); A Citizen of Massachusetts, The Times: or, The Pressure and its Causes Examined. An Address to the People (1837); James Wilson, Capital, Currency and Banking (1847); Arthur Smith, The Bubble of the Age (1848) (excerpts)
Retrospective analysis: texts by Frank C Spooner, Charles Wilson, Murray Rothbard and Larry Neal
Volume 2: 1850–1925
- The Ohio Life Crisis of 1857
- Overend & Gurney, 1867–9
- New York’s Black Friday of 1869
- The Vienna Crash of 1873
- The Crisis of 1907 that spawned the Federal Reserve Bank
- The German Hyperinflation of the 1920s
Contemporary sources (selection): Samuel H Walley, The Financial Revulsion of 1857 (1858); Robert Baxter, The Panic of 1866 (1866); Anon, The Profits of Panics, Showing how Financial Storms arise…(1866); William F Finalson, A Report of the Case of the Queen v Gurney and Others (1870); Henry Adams, ‘The New York Gold Conspiracy’ (1870 [1871]); Alfred Russel Wallace, Bad Times (1885); Edwin Seligman, The Crisis of 1907 (1908); David Lloyd George, Is it Peace? (1923); Lord d’Abernon, An Ambassador of Peace ([1923] 1929); Transcribed Unpublished Documents from the Bank of England Archives (1922–4)
Retrospective analysis: texts by Charles F Dunbar, Clement Juglar and John Moody
Volume 3: 1929–1995
- The New York Stock Exchange Crash of 1929
- The European Collapse and World Depression of 1931
- The Devaluation of Sterling in 1967
- The US Stock Market Crash of 1987
- ‘Black Wednesday’, 1992
- The Mexican Peso Crisis, 1994
Contemporary sources (selection): Ivan Wright, ‘Loans to Brokers and Dealers for Account of Others’ (1929); Articles from the New York Times (1929); M Charles Rist, ‘The International Consequences of the Present Distribution of Gold Holdings’ (1931); Transcribed Unpublished Documents from the Public Record Office: Admiralty and Prime Minister’s Office Records (1931); Transcribed unpublished Documents from the Public Record Office: Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet Records (1967); President Ronald Reagan, ‘Informal Exchange with Reporters’ (1987); The President’s Task Force on Market Mechanisms [Brady Commission] (1988); ‘Should Sterling Rejoin, and if so when?’, UK Treasury Document (1992); ‘Britain and the Exchange Rate Mechanism’, Chancellor’s Speech to the European Policy Forum, Treasury Papers (1993); Letter to Ernesto Zedillo, President of Mexico, from Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos, Ejército Zapatista de Liberacíon Nacional (EZLN) (1994); Riordan Roett, ‘Mexico-Political Update: Chase Manhattan’s Emerging Markets Group Memo’ (1995); Remarks by President Clinton at the Department of the Treasury on Mexican Loan Guarantees (1995); Press Briefing by Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin (1995)
Retrospective analysis: texts by John Kenneth Galbraith, Barry Eichengreen and Peter Temin
Reviews
'These volumes are worth their rather daunting price...[they] remind us that globalisation is nothing new.'
– Richard Lofthouse, CNBC European Business
'Many of the historical documents, which include letters, newspaper reports and articles, scholarly papers, government reports, excerpts from books, and various kinds of speeches, would be difficult to locate if not for these volumes...Summing up: Recommended'
– CHOICE