A History of the United States in Five Crashes

Stock Market Meltdowns That Defined a Nation

By: Scott Nations

Narrated by: Christopher Grove

Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

In this absorbing, smart, and accessible blend of economic and cultural history in the vein of the works of Michael Lewis and Andrew Ross Sorkin, a financial executive and CNBC contributor examines the five most significant stock market crashes in the United States over the past century, revealing how they have defined the nation today.

The Panic of 1907; Black Tuesday (1929); Black Monday (1987); the Great Recession (2008); the Flash Crash (2010): Each of these financial implosions that caused a catastrophic drop in the American stock market is a remarkable story in its own right. But taken together, they offer a unique financial history of the American century. In A History of the United States in Five Crashes, financial executive and CNBC contributor Scott Nations examines these precipitous dips, revealing how each played a role in America's political and cultural fabric, one building upon the next to create the nation we know today.

Scott Nations identifies the factors behind the disastrous runs on banks that led to the Panic of 1907, the first great scare of the 20th century. He explains why 1920s America adopted investment trusts - a practice that helped post-World War I Britain - and how they were a primary catalyst of the 1929 crash. He explores America's love affair with an expanding stock market in the 1980s - which spawned the birth of portfolio insurance that significantly contributed to the 1987 crash. And he examines the factors that led to the 2008 global meltdown and the rise of algorithmic trading, the modern financial technology that sparked the 2010 Flash Crash when American stocks lost a trillion dollars in minutes.

A History of the United States in Five Crashes clearly and compellingly illustrates the connections between these financial collapses and examines the solid, clear-cut lessons they offer for preventing the next one.

©2017 Scott Nations (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Best financial book I’ve ever read

When you read this book you feel like you are traveling back in time to all 5 market crashes. It’s like watching an action movie. Very informative!

Excellent analysis

I enjoyed this program. History always repeats itself. So the information is valuable to us traders.

best market/economic summary yet

Not technical but also not uselessly high level. great summary and reminders of the different crashes and aspects of them.

Great listen, very informative

Great listen, learn a lot from this book! Performance wasn’t my favorite, but the substance was big

“Too much greed, too little safety”

This book nails it perfectly by stating “Too much greed, too little safety” (...is in the core of the financial and overall economy system).

Now the question is, how many people took time to read this book and what lessons learned and takeaways in their day to day lives do they apply?

This time is different seems to be frequent attitude.
So how is really this time?

Great book !!

I really liked the book as it keeps reader always curious in the next set of events and really like some of the things like when speed and complexity competes speed always wins which is the reason for the last two crashes.

Enjoyable narrative and well researched

4.5 of 5 stars.

I would recommend this book for anyone interested in historic financial crashes without wanting a deep knowledge of those events. The author does a great job of crafting an accessible narrative which describes major events leading up to their ultimate respective meltdowns without being pedantic. While the reader may have a cursory knowledge of the events described, each of the 5 major crashes digs down a couple layers to secondary events which are less known and interesting.

The reader does a solid job for the material.

Wow. I need to listen @ 3 times.

A very interesting and frightnening book, making my stomach turn repeatedly while reading it and at present given my losses over the past week. One thing is certain, human hubris knows no limits and the stock market is the one place outide of religion where people should FEAR expertise while the rest of functioning society should and needs to rely upon it. It is not just that there is no such thing as a sure thing, but that this is often obviously the case. It is just that people . . supposedly smart people, close their eyes to the obvious so that they can make their killing and get out before the probabilities catch up to them. This book exposes a system that while it .y be in theory, the greatest engine for growth (through the capital it attracts that can be used to expand business) it is far dirtier, sloppier and criminal than can possibly be understood from a brief look at the headlines. I hope this idiotic trade war will not be remembered as the catalyst of hubris and stupidity that sets off the next crash. Ugh. The only downside (or upside?) is that this exposed how little I truly know about the modern market, fiscal or monetary policy or just about anything else. Time to go study.

great if you like LOTS of numbers

most people will enjoy it more in written form, with (I imagine) graphs to help follow events (ups and downs of indices, stock quotes, volumes, etc). I'm a bit weird that way: a table of numbers (spoken or written, ok either way) works better for me than a graph which I'd have to mentally deconstruct back to numbers! so I quite enjoyed this as an audiobook.

Good Book.

Although I did not agree with some of the conclusions, the book is very well written, easy to listen and follow, and the history is on the dot.