Disorder, fright and confusion': looking back at the devastating Wall Street crash of 1929

"The short version of what happened in 1929 is that a stock market built on fast credit and wild speculation suffered a series of falls culminating in the Black Thursday crash on 24 October, in Galbraith's words a day measured by disorder, fright, and confusion. Combined with factors including protectionist tariffs and rising unemployment, the crash was a key signpost to a devastating global depression."

"After Too Big to Fail, Sorkin said, he was often asked about 1929. I actually didn't know much. I had read JK Galbraith [The Great Crash, 1929, published in 1955] and a couple other books. And most people I knew, we would all sort of talk about 1929 as this terrible calamity, but nobody knew what actually happened who the people were, what they said to each other, what the motivations were, what the incentives were, what the lessons actually were."

"About a decade ago, seeking a way into the story, Sorkin went on vacation and like a real nerd, downloaded some books to a Kindle and I remember reading them, thinking: Wow, this is so much more interesting than I knew,' but also feeling most of the books about this period were written in the 1930s, some in the 40s, 50s."

The 1929 stock-market boom rested on rapid credit expansion and rampant speculation, producing repeated price declines that culminated in Black Thursday on 24 October, a day marked by disorder, fright, and confusion. Protectionist tariffs, rising unemployment and other structural weaknesses amplified the shock and helped trigger a global depression. Many historical accounts relied heavily on charts, data and economic analysis written decades earlier. A narrative focusing on the human drama reconstructs who the key players were, what they said and thought, their motivations and incentives, and the concrete lessons about financial fragility and policy responses.

Read at www.theguardian.com