The History of Financial Crises

Since 2007, the global financial system has endured extreme turbulence with banks suffering stomach-churning losses, necessitating unbelievable bailouts by national governments. Moreover, the ongoing eurozone crisis has highlighted still further the often dysfunctional interactions between government regulators, banks, and capital markets. But, of course, these events are far from novel. The current crises prompt comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s, the global crisis of 1907, the international crises of the 1870s, the meltdown of 1825, the Mississippi and South Sea bubbles of 1719–20, the Roman crisis of 33AD, the default by Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, around 400BC, and perhaps even the financial cataclsym in Babylon that occurred more than three thousand years ago.

The urgent necessity to locate, and learn from, successful examples of sustained recovery from severe financial crises—and to place present crises in a meaningful historical context—underscores the timeliness and usefulness of this new Routledge collection, expertly edited by Larry Neal and D’Maris Coffman. In four volumes, the collection meets the need for an authoritative reference work to allow researchers and students to make sense of a vast literature and the continuing efflorescence in research output. Users will now be able easily and rapidly to locate the best and most influential scholarship, work that is otherwise often inaccessible or scattered throughout a variety of specialist journals and books. With material gathered into one easy-to-use set, researchers and students can spend more of their time with the key journal articles, book chapters, and other pieces, rather than on time-consuming (and sometimes fruitless) archival searches.

The History of Financial Crises is fully indexed and includes a comprehensive introduction and epilogue, newly written by the editors. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by users as a vital one-stop research resource.

Edited and with a new introduction by Larry Neal, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, Visiting Professor, LSE; andD’Maris Coffman, Director of the Centre for Financial History, Newnham College, Cambridge