Review by Choice Review
Klein (history, Univ. of Rhode Island), author of several books on personalities and institutions that have taken center stage in American business history, focuses here on financial events and trends leading up to the stock market crash of 1929. Following a prologue describing the state of the US economy on the eve of the crash, chapter 1 discusses the economic boom of the 1920s. Chapter 2 covers the culture of the world of Wall Street, while chapter 3 examines the growing speculation of the 1920s and the response of the still-new Federal Reserve. Subsequent chapters chronicle the beginnings of the bull market, growing consumerism, and the accompanying social and cultural changes of the 1920s. Discussions of the weeks prior to the crash, the crash itself, and its aftermath are presented in the last chapters and epilogue. Klein's accessible view of the cultural and social history of Wall Street and the US during a pivotal decade is recommended for all libraries. R. Grossman Wesleyan University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Scholars, historians, and economists continue to argue over the causes of the stock market crash of 1929 and the role it played in bringing on the Great Depression. Klein offers his perspective in this second entry in the Pivotal Moments in American History series. A University of Rhode Island history professor, Klein has a goal "to write readable books that are historically sound," and he has done just that here and with earlier works on Jay Gould, E. H. Harriman, the Civil War, and railroad history. Klein puts the crash into "the context from which it sprang," a context that "has its roots in the American experience during World War I." He describes the postwar world and the forces that shaped it before focusing on the behavior of the stock market during the two years preceding the crash. Klein's book is a valuable complement to two other popular narratives of the crash: John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash, 1929 (1955) and Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts' The Day the Bubble Burst (1979). --David Rouse
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The first serious account of the Crash of 1929 was Only Yesterday, by Frederick Lewis Allen, published less than two years after the event and still in print. Disappointingly, Klein's effort is almost a chapter-by-chapter retelling of Only Yesterday, adding some research from the last 70 years but lacking Allen's firsthand knowledge and writing skill. Klein (The Life and Legend of Stephen Jay Gould) is an academic historian. His prose is pleasant enough, but he dashes hope of depth or rigor with the claim that the Crash cannot be explained by economics, or indeed by any observable historical forces, but by a change in national mood. This assumption permits him to focus on such topics as baseball batting averages, flagpole sitting and hemlines between 1900 and 1928. He also explores the "irrational exuberance" fostered by the period's colorful Wall Street personalities, men like Sunshine Charley Mitchell, the great, attention-seeking bond trader who headed National City Bank. Provocatively, he also observes the period's preoccupation with escape newly available through the automobile, the motion picture, sports and television and its economic impact.Yet Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts analyzed the culture of the period more effectively in The Day the Bubble Burst. (Oct. 29) Forecast: There are many books on the 1929 market crash, but John Kenneth Galbraith's innovative and engaging The Great Crash of 1929 easily remains the best account for the general reader; those already knowledgeable about the Crash will find this account wanting. Klein is a prominent business historian, however, and the topic should garner some review coverage and sales. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Klein (history, Univ. of Rhode Island), a Pulitzer Prize finalist who specializes in American business history, observes that "scholars have yet to determine what actually caused the [1929 stock market] crash and the role, if any, it played in bringing on the depression that followed." Nevertheless, in this well-written, well-documented, and fast-paced narrative, he explores the myriad social, political, cultural, and economic events that led to the crash and its immediate aftermath. With his scene-setting discussions of the prosperous 1920s, the era's various enterprises and their leaders (e.g., Henry Ford and Sunshine Charley Mitchell, head of the National City Bank), the speculators drawn into the game, and the political atmosphere of the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover years, Klein helps readers better understand the reaction of millions to an event that shook the world. Parallels to the recent business climate make this a timely publication that should be considered by academic and public libraries. Steven J. Mayover, Philadelphia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A well-written, comprehensible assessment of the 1929 stock-market crash. Klein (The Life and Legend of E.H. Harriman, 2000, etc.) is a seasoned business historian, and he humanizes a potentially dry subject, capturing how the rapid post-WWI transformations affected both average Americans-who, as "minnows," were seduced by the market-and the powerful cabals that ran "the Street." Although the dark chaos of October 1929 provides the center here, Klein reconstructs the halcyon days preceding the crash, the ethos of greedy naivete, which may have caused it, and its relationship to the worldwide depression that followed. He is adept at explaining complex business ideas (such as covert stock pools and the bearish tactic of "selling short," both of which were factors in the crash) in terms that convey the gravity of what followed 1929's "Summer of Fun." He builds toward the climactic disaster via scrupulous readings of primary sources, and strengthens the milieu by depicting many of the era's most significant industrial and cultural figures, such as Henry Ford and Aimee Semple McPherson, as well as the Street's many gold-plated gurus, from Sunshine Charley Mitchell of the National City Bank to the famous stock-tipping bootblack Pat Bologna, some of whose shady tactics undeniably contributed to the final panic. Of the Great Crash itself, which began on Thursday, October 23, and continued through Tuesday, Klein notes that "the selling wave seemed irresistible . . . frightening holders into selling at the market' " (at any price), while technology was overwhelmed by human fallibility, with stock tickers running over an hour late. Throughout, as Klein ruefully observes, one cannot miss the glaring similarities between Hoover's pro-business "New Era" and our own recently hobbled, high-tech "new economy," such as the irrational exuberance demonstrated in both eras by an uneducated investing public. Klein is an elegant (if detail-obsessed) constructor of business histories, and one can read dire warnings between the lines here. A most timely business narrative.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
