Manias, Panics, and Crashes ─ A History of Financial Crises

Since its introduction in 1978, this book has charted and followed the volatile world of financial markets. Charles Kindleberger's brilliant, panoramic history revealed how financial crises follow a pattern. Events of recent years and the current Eurozone continue to dominate policy and headline debates around the globe. In this updated and expanded seventh edition, Robert Z. Aliber probes the most recent calamities and changes in the markets, including the unique nature of economic activities in China. Most significantly, Robert Z. Aliber proposes, for the first time, that the sequence of global financial tensions in recent years are not independent events, or a case of 'bad actors' at play, but symptomatic of an inherent instability in the international system. The popular boxed highlights continue throughout (referring to such global phenomenon that affect us all such as Bitcoin) so allowing readers to dip in and out as they wish.

With an updated Foreword from Robert M. Solow and a new Afterword from Lord Robert Skidelsky, this edition exemplifies the continued importance of Kindleberger's work and Aliber's ongoing examination of financial crises around the world.

Robert Z. Aliber is Professor Emeritus of International Economics and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, USA. He was director of the Center for Studies in International Finance; on the research staff for the Committee for Economic Development and Commission on Money and Credit; and senior economic advisor for the Agency for Economic Development, U.S. Department of State. Best-selling publications include The Reconstruction of International Monetary Arrangements (ed., Macmillan, 1986), The Handbook of International Financial Management (ed. Dow Jones Irwin, 1989), and Global Portfolios (co-editor, Business One Irwin, 1991). He is a co-author of Money, Banking, and the Economy (Norton, First Edition, 1981, Fourth Edition 1990), Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Palgrave MacMillan, 5th ed. 2005, 6th ed. 2011), and author of The International Money Game (Palgrave MacMillan, 2001).

Aliber has consulted to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and to other U.S. government agencies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, testified before committees of the Congress, and lectured extensively in the United States and abroad.

The late Charles P. Kindleberger was the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT for 33 years and author of over 30 books. He was best known as a financial historian, whom the Economist referred to as 'the master of the genre' on financial crisis. He advanced the study of international finance and helped to devise the Marshall Plan, approved by Congress, for Europe's reconstruction after World War II. During his tenure at MIT, Kindleberger was a consultant to the federal government several times, most often for the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. In 1985, he was president of the American Economic Association.

Select key publications by Kindleberger include: International Short-Term Capital Movements (Columbia University Press, 1937), The Dollar Shortage (New York: Wiley and MIT Press, 1950), International Economics (Richard D. Irwin, 1953, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, (and with Peter H. Lindert) 1978, 1982), Economic Development (McGraw-Hill, 1958, 1965, (and with Bruce Herrick) 1977, 1983), The World In Depression, 1929-1939 (University of California Press, 1973, revised and enlarged, 1986), and Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Palgrave Macmillan, 1978, revised and enlarged, 1989, 3rd ed. 1996, 4th ed. 1996), The Life of an Economist: An Autobiography (Basil Blackwell, 1991).