"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
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Panic of 1907: History and Lessons:
The Panic of 1907 begins with the roaring economy at the time---the boom that always comes before the bust. Then comes the initial shock---the San Francisco Earthquake---which shook not only the ground and brought down the buildings but put new strains on an already stretched capital market with new demands for money. The overstretched capital market exposed a short selling stock scam in the shares of United Copper Co., an "on the curb" or what we would call a "pink sheet" stock today. This had been... more info
Learn from the past:
This book gave me huge insight into our nation's current situation as the names may have changed the general issues have not and maybe we can learn from that.
A nice lesson in economics:
This small book does a good job of explaining the Panic that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. In 1907, JP Morgan was powerful enough, and the world of finance was small enough, that one man could stem the tide. He was 70 years old and had had enough experience to know what to do. His reputation was such that others would take his advice. The story is well told and I was willing to give the authors one more star for their observation that John Maynard Keynes' 1936 recommendation for... more info
Panic of 1907:
A fascinating book with many parallels to the current crisis. We have no J. P. Morgan today.
