The Great Crashes
Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them
@GreatBookSeries
Paperback out 4 April 2024
Foreign language editions: Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese
Available at booksellers, including: Amazon UK, Blackwells, Waterstones (Waterstones Gower Street has signed copies)
#1 Best Seller in Microeconomics, Economic Labour and Finance & Stock Market History - Amazon
'entertainingly written book' - i newspaper's Best New Books in May 2023
"entertaining, well-written and remarkably short" - Sunday Telegraph
"a perfect primer on the main financial disasters of the past 100 years"
"Yueh’s analysis of the Great Crash is as great a single-chapter account of what went wrong as any yet published. Her refreshing approach, defined by clarity and comprehensible explanations of a complex field, is then applied to other emergencies since the 1930s, including the Latin American debt crisis and the dotcom boom and bust." - The Times
'A gifted writer' (een begenadigd schrijver) ― De Telegraaf
'Economics is somewhat cursed as a fascinating topic that often gets bogged down by stodgy explanation and maths. Yueh’s book is refreshingly free of this, and she writes lucidly about a century of crashes around the world. The book is brief and pacy, too' - Guardian
'She expertly contrasts their various causes and consequences, and identifies three common phases: first comes euphoria, then credibility, followed by aftermath. This frame provides an insightful window into the behaviours and policy mis-steps that contributed to the most infamous crashes. An important book to keep us all on our toes when complacency starts to creep in, again.' - Financial Times' The Best New Books on Economics
'brief but engrossing' The Telegraph's
The 75 best books for summer 2023 – what to read on holiday
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The global economy has weathered the most tumultuous century in modern financial history.
Since the Wall Street Crash in 1929, financial meltdowns have repeatedly sent shockwaves through our world. From the currency crises of the 1980s and 1990s, to Japan's housing crash, the dot com boom and bust, the global financial meltdown, the euro crisis and the COVID pandemic, The Great Crashes tells the stories of ten of these historic events. They serve as a series of cautionary tales, each with their own set of lessons to be learnt.
With clear-eyed analysis, renowned economist Dr Linda Yueh extracts a three step framework to help recognise the early signs of a crash and mitigate the effects - all with the hope of preventing the worst mistakes of the past from being repeated in the next inevitable financial crisis. She warns about where the next one might come from and shows how her framework could contain it.
Combining her in-depth knowledge with compelling storytelling, The Great Crashes is essential reading that offers urgent lessons for the modern world.
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Praise for The Great Crashes
“Linda Yueh's analysis of what past financial crises have in common is an important contribution that can help society anticipate and tackle potential crashes in the future.” - Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank and former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, 2011-2019
“A masterclass in spotting the early signs of a crisis. Linda Yueh expertly shows how we can understand these crashes better when they occur and even prevent them from happening in the future. A accessible yet rich study of our most turbulent economic years.” - Nouriel Roubini, author of Megathreats
“A first point of entry for anybody who wants to learn how the world economy sleep-walked into multiple crashes over the last century.” - Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor at MIT, and author of Why Nations Fail
“A timely and instructive book on the big financial and economic crashes. It comes in the midst of a global polycrisis that threatens the economic and social wellbeing of all especially the World's poorest citizens. Linda Yueh makes a heroic effort to tease out lessons fundamental to managing future crises. The question is: Will we learn?” - Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and former Finance Minister of Nigeria, 2003-2006 and 2011-2015
"Timely, entertaining and full of useful insights.” Gideon Rachman, Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator, Financial Times
“Troubled times call for a historical perspective and this is the historical perspective we need.” – Sir John Kay, author of Radical Uncertainty and former Member of the Independent Commission on Banking of the UK Government, 2010-2011
“Fascinating, well-written and authoritative.” - Tim Harford
“An accessible and insightful overview of modern financial crises, incorporating both historical detail and thoughtful analysis” - Kenneth Rogoff, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University and former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund
Crashes are an integral part of the history of capitalism. The last century has seen plenty of them. All crashes begin with debt-fuelled euphoria and end in disappointment. Yet how bad that disappointment turns out to be also depends on where in the economy the crash falls and how determined and credible are the responses. In this lively and blessedly brief book, Linda Yueh does a lovely job of explaining the history and drawing the necessary lessons. - Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times
“Linda provides many with a very readable summary of all the great crises, but also more importantly derives the big lessons and how to have a better policy framework to avoid getting caught up in too much ‘this time it is different’ when the next big risks appear.” – Lord Jim O'Neill, Author of The Growth Map and former Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management
“Demonstrates how that old saying – ‘this time is different’ - is both so true and so wrong!” - Lord Stephen Green, former CEO and Chairman of HSBC and UK Minister of State for Trade and Investment, 2011-2013
‘This excellent overview identifies the ingredients that are specific to each crisis and common to all. She provides a lucid assessment of the efficacy of policy responses, highlighting credibility as a necessary condition for successful resolution’ - Lord Nick Macpherson, former Permanent Secretary of the UK Treasury, 2005-2016, and Chairman of C. Hoare & Co.
“This well-written book draws out the many different ways in which markets can crash and she's willing to chance her arm predicting the next one.” – Sir Vince Cable, author of How to be a Politician and former UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2010-2015
“Why did nobody notice?” Was the question the Queen asked about the 2008 financial crisis. It was a good question. All financial crises and crashes have their own characteristics but they also often involve certain common features:- Irrational exuberance, Speculative frenzy, Greed and over confidence usually supported by high levels of gearing.
Linda Yueh’s new book will be a timely reminder to governments and regulators of the warning signs of future crises. – Lord Norman Lamont, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1990-1993