Product Description: "Before reading The Panic of 1907, the year 1907 seemed like a long time ago and a different world. The authors, however, bring this story alive in a fast-moving book, and the reader sees how events of that time are very relevant for today's financial world. In spite of all of our advances, including a stronger monetary system and modern tools for managing risk, Bruner and Carr help us understand that we are not immune to a future crisis." —Dwight B. Crane, Baker Foundation Professor, Harvard Business School
"Bruner and Carr provide a thorough, masterly, and highly readable account of the 1907 crisis and its management by the great private banker J. P. Morgan. Congress heeded the lessons of 1907, launching the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to prevent banking panics and foster financial stability. We still have financial problems. But because of 1907 and Morgan, a century later we have a respected central bank as well as greater confidence in our money and our banks than our great-grandparents had in theirs." —Richard Sylla, Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets, and Professor of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University
"A fascinating portrayal of the events and personalities of the crisis and panic of 1907. Lessons learned and parallels to the present have great relevance. Crises and panics are as much a part of our future as our past." —John Strangfeld, Vice Chairman, Prudential Financial
"Who would have thought that a hundred years after the Panic of 1907 so much remained to be written about it? Bruner and Carr break significant new ground because they are willing to do the heavy lifting of combing through massive archival material to identify and weave together important facts. Their book will be of interest not only to banking theorists and financial historians, but also to business school and economics students, for its rare ability to teach so clearly why and how a panic unfolds." —Charles Calomiris, Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions, Columbia University, Graduate School of Business
Interesting perspective While the book certainly has some weaknesses, it is still a remarkable and readable one, providing very interesting perspectives on credit crises.
A Very Easy Read Most people reading books on finance, particularly historical books, aren't really expecting something highly readable by a layman. That is where this book is quite surprising. It flows very nicely and quickly. It visualizes events of the day very well. To be clear, this book focuses quite closely on the events immediately preceeding, leading up to and mostly during the crisis in October-November 1907. Some discussion is done of the aftermath and results but it really focuses and puts you in the meeting rooms with the people making the decisions at the time they were happening. Some space is given to the aftermath and addressing the causes but it really does a spectacular job of actually walking through the events that occurred as they were perceived. What is thought provoking is how eerily similar some attributes of this moment in history are to today. Particularly as Bruner and Carr walk you through the cascade of one institution disintegrating after another and as the events unfold to cascade wider and wider in scope. What exacerbated the events of the day, liquidity evaporating, is very much what is driving and exacerbating more recent events. The authors do seem a touch fond of J.P. Morgan and how he handled the crisis and do focus quite a bit on this. However, the facts are what they are. Had there been no J.P. Morgan to step in, one wonders how differently things may have unfolded. This book is highly readable and flows quite smoothly and quickly and is very enlightening.
Helped Me Understand Today This is a clear, concise book that gives an overview of the Banking Panic of 1907. The most useful part of the book for me was the glossary as the authors define such words as "bank panic", "stock market crash", and so on. We hear these words every day, but never have a clear definition of them. The Panic of 1907 seems very similar to what is happening in the credit crisis and money market/hedge fund panics of today, except they are on a more global scale. My one complaint is the book was too short and, therefore, skipped some of the detail I was looking for. Overall, this is a great book and will help people without a financial background understand what happens during a panic and what steps need to be taken to stop the panic.
A vivid history and critique of the 1907 financial crisis If you compare the 1907 crisis that struck U.S. and European financial institutions with 2008's economic emergencies, you will discover striking similarities. (In fact, the uncanny parallels have made this fascinating book a bestseller.) Strong interconnectivity between financial firms meant that trouble at one migrated to others. Both crises involved serious credit and liquidity concerns. Both provoked populist attacks against Wall Street. In part, the trusts hit trouble in 1907 because of insufficient regulation. The 1907 crisis started on Wall Street, and quickly jumped to European institutions. In 2008, the trajectory was even more global. Of course, marked differences also separate these episodes. In 1907, fabled financier J.P. Morgan exercised remarkable leadership to end the crisis, and to reassure depositors and investors that their savings and equity holdings were secure. Morgan calmed the waters so the panic would not spread. "This is the place to stop this trouble," he said of the Trust Company of America. Robert F. Bruner and Sean D. Carr explain why the 1907 panic occurred and use it as a valuable case study for understanding other monetary crises. getAbstract is confident that history lovers, businesspeople, financial executives and anyone who enjoys a well-told, real-life drama will love this book.
The more things change, the more they remain the same Financial history is fascinating precisely because it documents simularities with the present, even while the products or organizational mechanisms of the time are different; this book is great for this moment of credit contraction and fear in the 21st century, a hundred years after the documented events.
Reading about JP Morgan (the person) meeting with the various bank and trust company heads, and bringing in Teddy Roosevelt as he felt relevant, reminded me both of the behind-doors funding conversations in 1998 that kept the Long Term Capital disaster from spreading (see When Genius Failed, by Roger Lowenstein), and made me think of Tim Geithner, head of the NY Fed, and Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary, working with JP Morgan (the firm) in the spring of this year (2008) to contain the blow-up of Bear Stearns.
Timelines aren't always tight, and the historical material is a lot more limited that what Roger Lowenstein had to work with, but it is still a very compelling story and appropos comparison to the present. Interesting also is the international elements of gold movements to contain the unfolding crisis of credit/confidence.
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