Review: 1929 Inside the Greatest Crash in History--and How It Shattered a Nation

I got a copy of the book free as part of Goodreads Giveaways.

I’m a big history geek. Anyone who talks to me long enough has heard me make reference to history, whether relatively recent or in the distant past. So when this book came up on Goodreads Giveaways I already had it in my To Read list and figured it was worth a shot at getting the book for free.

I knew what to expect going in because I had heard at least 2 different podcast interviews with the author talking about the book. He really wanted to take this big story in American history and personalize it. To that end, he didn’t use it to draw parallels to today and he didn’t convert any of the money into 2025 dollars. That said, it was hardly necessary for him to draw any parallels. As I was reading the book I would see a passage about some 1920s Wall Street dude talking about why it would be bad to regulate Wall Street or why the system would sort itself out and not see parallels in the 2001 crash, the 2008 crash, and the current AI bubble. It’s pretty sad that our species appears completely incapable of learning and/or that those in power KNOW it’s going to go wrong, but hope they can get theirs before it does.

In my opinion, Sorkin succeeds at personalizing the crash from the point of view of those in power. We essentially get the stories of about half a dozen men (and occasionally their wives) from the weeks leading up to the crash and the few years afterwards. The final chapter carries whoever is still alive through the 40s and 50s. To me, the big surprise cameo was Winston Churchhill. I had no idea he was hanging with these guys prior to World War II. Hoover wasn’t a surprise, but what was a surprise is that he somewhat doesn’t deserve his bad rap - at least based on Sorkin’s portrayal. He seems to be a man who had the right ideas, but the wrong charisma for the moment.

If you like history and would like to see the 1929 crash from a zoomed-in point of view, I highly recommend.

• Economics
• History