Rating: 
Summary: Spritely
Review: A spritely account of the days leading up to the great crash. A must read from a historical perspective, and some useful normative accounts.
Rating: 
Summary: Give me a break
Review: Although not claiming to be able to predict a market crash, Galbraith tells the reader, "the phrases are the same: 'The economic situation is fundamentally sound' or simply 'The fundamentals are good.' All who hear these words should know that something is wrong" (Intro-XIV). He drills this into the minds of the reader, from the introduction till the end of the book. The last two words printed in the book are "fundamentally sound" (194). This must be one of his main points, as it seems to appear every five to ten pages.Galbraith also seems to have a "holier-than-thou attitude" that is consistent throughout the book, and reminds me of "the blind leading the blind." He talks as if Americans are stupid and for them to try to figure out the market is way beyond their means. This can be clearly seen in the introduction to the book when he writes, "There is now far more money flowing into the markets than there is intelligence to guide it" (XII). He speaks as if he has it all figured out and we (the readers) are stupid to even try. The reality is that the Wall Street brokers don't have it figured out, either. The only reason they do any better than the average investor is that they are around to hear all of the whisper that surrounds the market. As far as I can tell, the market is like collecting baseball cards-it doesn't really matter how well or how poorly the company does as long as it is the hot item of the day. The brokers then put on a game face to convince the investor that they need their help in order to succeed. Galbraith never ceases to amaze us as he pushes the limits even further. His personality is revealed when he writes, "To the typical female plunger the association of steel was not with a corporation... Rather it was with symbols on a tape and lines on a chart and a price that went up" (76). Be it too hard to believe, to the all-mighty, that a woman (in the 1920's) not be able to speculate a bright future for steel as America becomes a very strong industrialized nation. Galbraith then seems to contradict himself as his thesis of the book seems to be, "One of the pregnant lessons of that year will now be plain: it is that very specific and personal misfortune that awaits those who presume to believe that the future is revealed to them" (188). This implies that even he cannot predict the market, and thus no better than "the typical female plunger the association of steel was not with a corporation... Rather it was with symbols on a tape and lines on a chart and a price that went up" (76). Another contradiction of his can be seen at the end of the book when he is explaining why the market crashed (the speculative bubble burst). First he says, "the high production of the twenties did not, as some have suggested, outrun the wants of the people" (173). Then he tells the reader that corporations had "acquired larger inventories than they later found they needed" (174). He then goes on to explain the five weaknesses of the economy that were pointed out by the crash, and his reasons why a crash could and couldn't happen again. However, this is only in the last thirty pages of the book. The first 170 pages of the book deals with who said what and how their reputation was helped or hurt by those statements. This is all pretty boring stuff and not needed by my accounts. I view this as an attempt to fill a book. The only thing worth reading in this book is the last chapter: I found myself constantly falling out of focus while trying to read it. I view Galbraith as a true "Demagogue" that plays on the fears of others. This book was first published in 1955 during another economic boom on Wall Street. He seems to want to capitalize on the boom of the stock market by the subject of his book and his perceived appearance that he is all knowing about the subject. I would give this book the lowest rating possible, as I thought that only the last chapter was worth reading. Even then, I found that he did not tell me anything that I did not already learn in American History (Patrick Goines). Although his time has come and gone, I find that the last laugh is on him as he was a dying breed. One thing that new age technology has brought us is the ability to trade stocks instantly and cheaply. The days of $50 + 1% commissions are over as America finds that a $7.95 stock trade with their own decisions work just as well. The truth is that everyone in the market is at risk, and should not buy on margin or put in any money that they can not afford to lose. Anyone who buys this book to gain some insight as to how and why the market rises or falls is wasting enough money to place a stock trade. There is no easy way to make a quick buck and no sure answer. Although, Galbraith has seemed to find one easy way out as this book has been in print from 1955 to present. The bottom line is that there is no answer to the market, and the only way to have a "sure thing" is to be on the market floor. This is because the traders make a commission on every trade. It does not matter whether the investor makes or loses money; he still gets his commission-high or low. Who cares? (As long as the volume keeps moving)
Rating:
Summary: This book is educational, and fun to read.
Review: As I am a teenager, this book was probably the most enjoyable book on us history I have ever read. It was full of facts on the stock-market, while it told the story of how the crash actually happened.
Rating:
Summary: Exploring the 1929 crash in elegant prose
Review: Economics, like physics, has a fundamental canon: you cannot make money out of nothing. To narrate the history of financial bubbles is to chronicle those times when people overlooked that fact. In those instances, asset prices soar merely to be resold for profit, with little regard as to their actual value; when something shakes confidence and buyers are in short supply, a crash follows as prices were sustainable only insofar as they could be resold higher.
According to John Galbraith, the stock-market crash that took place in the fall of 1929 was typical of this prototype. Mr. Galbraith, a Harvard economist, traced the optimism to the Florida real-estate bubble of 1925 which made people forget the elementary rules of money making. What follows is an elegant narrative that interweaves economics with history to produce one of the most telling and lucid accounts of the developments, economic and otherwise, that lead up to the October 1929 crash.
The crash, according to Mr. Galbraith, was caused by an admixture of bad income distribution (economy too dependent on luxury spending and investment), bad corporate structure, bad banking structure, foreign imbalances, and bad economic intelligence. In seeking compelling explanations, the "Great Crash" often resists conventional wisdom: for example, to those who blame the abundance of credit, Mr. Galbraith answers: "on numerous occasions before and since credit has been easy, and there has been no speculation whatever." Mr. Galbraith looks beyond central banking and interest rates to compile a rich and diverse history of the 1929 crash.
So what about preventing future crises? Here, Mr. Galbraith is ambivalent. Regulation has and can play a substantial role in preventing future troubles. But the problem lies elsewhere: people continue to believe that they have been blessed, and that they can make money with little or no effort. When wise men see such folly and decide to partake in it rather than spoil it, a bubble that later crashes is inevitable. For all those who seek an economic solution to this economic problem, Mr. Galbraith surely disappoints. The surest protection against over-speculation, he writes, is to remind people that you can never get something from nothing. Those in love with central banking might find the idea simplistic, yet its beauty lies with its simplicity.
Rating:
Summary: Galbraith writes EXCELLENT FICTION. For Facts, see Rothbard
Review: Galbraith has established himself as a great writer of fiction, second only to Angly's "Oh Yeah!", whom he cites heavily. My question is, why not publish Angly's original book instead? As for as the Literacy of those who praise Galbraith, try spelling HABSBURG correctly! The name, when spelled with a P is meant as an insult, much the same as Farah-Khanzeer would be to Farakhan. For the Facts, see Rothbard's book on the subject. At least Rothbard comes to the right conclusions that the Hoover GOVERNMENT caused the Depression, and the fdr GOVERNMENT needlessly prolonged it, emphasis on GOVERNMENT! PS. I must appologize for giving this book a rating of ONE STAR. ZERO STARS is more like it.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating. Effective. Inventive.
Review: Galbraith's inventive work on the fascinating events leading up and preceding the 1929 stock market crash is must-read for anyone interested in the national economy, how it functions, how it fails, and what role the federal government plays in perpetuating or stifling the situation. He very convincingly establishes a good groundwork for the reader, explaining why the stock market was in such a large expansion and how federal regulation (or lack therof) enabled the financial firms to operate in very risky and perhaps unethical ways. Obviously, the book chronicles the disastrous declines in 1929 and further discusses the federal government's attempts to revive the American economy, those for the most part failed. The most important lesson this book can allay to the reader is that economies are not self-sustaining structures that are only subject to supply and demand shifts. In instances like the 1929 crash, the prognosis for dynamic economies can often lie in the actions of a handful of actors/people. A good lesson to remember. Indeed there are many lessons to be learned from this book, many that are relevant to today's economy (2003). Read this book with care and with a comparative mindset! A must read for economists and public policy makers!
Rating:
Summary: A great book to read - clear and enlightening!
Review: Galbraith, a great writer has given us a vivid and detailed account of the worst stock market disaster in the US history. He builds up to Black Thirsday beautifully. No need to know economics or stocks just need to have a thirst to know the real truth. Read the book and you will realize that stock market crashes involve not only panics and hysteria but also personal motives at high levels. A must read for all you out there who think that this 1997 market wont crash. The time is 1929 but the lessons are universal
Rating:
Summary: What Actually Happened in 1929?
Review: Having just lived through the crash of the dot-com stocks, I thought it was a particularly appropriate moment to reread John Kenneth Galbraith's famous history of the stock market crash of 1929 in the United States. Professor Galbraith's final words prove to be prophetic as he suggests that as soon as the lessons of 1929 are forgotten, the speculative excesses that led to that debacle will recur. I am sure that when the dot-bomb experience is forgotten, it will be repeated with some new class of speculation in some future generation. With the recent experience of seeing a market mania, I came away more impressed with this book than before. Professor Galbraith does a fine job of capturing the psychology that builds into and sustains a mania. He also writes like a novelist rather than like an economist. That talent makes the message easy to grasp and appreciate. I was also impressed by how our popular perceptions of 1929 are so often wrong. For example, most people believe that many "broken" speculators committed suicide. Although some did, there was no significant rise in the suicide rate compared to a general trend in that direction. Economists often like to fault the Federal Reserve for the crash. That blame seems somewhat misplaced when you learn that there was very little government debt that the Fed could repurchase to create liquidity. Had the Fed acted differently, the crash might have come a little sooner and not been quite so severe . . . but the fundamentals would probably not have changed too much. Another misperception is that everyone was speculating. By even the most generous measures, the speculators probably never numbered over a million people. Although this is a history, Professor Galbraith takes on the economic question of how the crash contributed to the Depression. Although we know very little about the economic details of 1929, I was impressed by the point about how much consumer spending was concentrated in the wealthiest people. As they lost vast sums, both spending for consumer goods and savings for capital were decimated. With the broader income distribution of today, such a cataclysm would not be so harmful (as we saw in the aftermath of the dot-com crash). There is an excellent parallel discussion of the land boom in Florida earlier in the 1920's that is very rewarding. I was intrigued by the ways that ever increasing ways of extending leverage were created so that both bubbles could climb higher. In Florida, people didn't actually buy the land. They bought options to buy the land, and traded those. In the stock market, holding companies sold stock and then floated new holding companies. These were capitalized with common stock, preferred and debt so that all of the appreciation would accrue to the common holders. Naturally, the opposite occurred on the way down. Many stocks fell by over 99 percent, as a result. Everyone who is tempted to buy any item primarily because it is thought to represent an opportunity for a quick buck should read this book. Look for true value in all that you do!
Rating: 
Summary: Has some good points; Superficial
Review: I am reading this book for a college economics class. It is one of 5 books I have already read on the Great Depression, since I am doing a paper on the subject. I am not so arrogant as to criticize the Economics ability of a Harvard professor in the subject, but I will say this book is superficial. It just glosses over the Crash in a jaunty sort of way. I do think it has some good points (shortness being one of them), and I will use it to illustrate one perspective when I write my paper, but there are a lot of books out there where the author clearly spent about 100 times longer thinking about what might have caused the Crash than JKG has put forth here.
One good thing: it captures the mood of the recent 1999/2000 stock bubble so perfectly that you could just about change the names and dates and re-release the same book. The more things change, in some cases, the more they stay the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to understand
Review: I had to read this book for a history class in college. Being someone who knows absolutely nothing about the stock market, I found this book very hard to understand and follow. It was slow and did not keep my attention. I think if you know about the stock market and are interested in the causes of the crash it would be a good book for you, but not for someone who has no knowledge of the stock market going into the book.
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