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Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, The Great Recession, and the Uses-and Misuses-of History Hardcover – 22 Jan 2015

by Barry Eichengreen (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars 6 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 520 pages
  • Publisher: OUP USA; First Edition edition (22 Jan. 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0199392005
  • ISBN-13: 978-0199392001
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 3.8 x 16.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 257,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

one of the most clear-sighted of commentators in recent years. He brings all his insights together in Hall of Mirrors (Ben Chu, Books of the Year 2015, Independent)

Hall of Mirrors is both a major work of economic history and an essential exploration of how we avoided making only some of the same mistakes twice. It shows not just how the "lessons" of Great Depression history continue to shape society's response to contemporary economic problems, but also how the experience of the Great Recession will permanently change how we think about the Great Depression. (Crisis Observatory)

This book is a joy; for a book gf serious economics, it sings (Financial World, Andrew Hilton)

entertaining (Capital, Christian Schütte)

educational... well researched and well written (Mortgage Strategy)

his version of the 1930s is rich with detail and myth-busting insights. (Economist)

As a leading scholar of the Great Depression and one of the deftest commentators on the current crisis, Eichengreen is perfectly placed to compare the two slumps. The book is rich with anecdotes including portraits of the financiers who twice helped to bring the US banking system to its knees that make it highly readable...impressive work. Hall of Mirrors is destined to change the way we think about both the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Commentators and scholars will debate its thesis for many years to come. (Financial Times, Ferdinando Giugliano)

Hall of Mirrors is destined to change the way we think about both the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Commentators and scholars will debate its thesis for many years to come. (Ferdinando Giugliano, Financial Times)

Eichengreen mines his material for lessons learned and lost a worthy and distinctive addition to the literature on the crash. (Wall Street Journal)

Eichengreen recreates the last century's two great episodes of financial instability with compelling portraits of bankers and policymakers and accessible theoretical explanations . . . his version of the 1930s is rich with detail and myth-busting insights. (The EconomistR)

About the Author

Professor of Economics and Political Science, University of California-Berkeley

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5.0 out of 5 starsWe need to learn more from Economic History; this is a good place to start
By therealus TOP 1000 REVIEWER on 21 April 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Another day, another book about the Great Recession. I’ve already reviewed Martin Wolf’s The Shifts And The Shocks, and reading that and Barry Eichengreen’s Hall Of Mirrors back-to-back feels like the economics version of self-flagellation. Not because they’re no good. Quite the opposite. They both give a detailed breakdown of what went wrong, and what went wrong after the initial success in launching a recovery operation (upon which they largely agree), and do so in an accessible, economically literate way.

The difference between the two is largely that where Wolf spends a lot of time discussing possible ways of avoiding a repeat, Eichengreen looks at the similarities (hence the title) between the Great Recession and the Great Depression in far more detail than does Wolf. His rationale is his contention that economic history is an overlooked discipline, and although my own bookshelves may be an exception to that, it is an avenue worth exploring.

In simple terms, in the early part of the 21st century as in the early part of the 20th, the banks and other financial institutions of the world had been allowed too much of a free rein, growing in size, complexity and power to the point where outsiders had lost supervisory control, partly because they lacked teeth, partly because they did not fully understand the financial instruments in which the institutions were dealing, and partly because the system was so opaque. Once it was clear there was a problem the authorities were fairly quick in intervening, rescuing (or not, in the case of Lehman) the “too-big-to-fail” institutions, reassuring retail customers and pouring billions of taxpayers’ dollars, euros, pounds and so on into the effort.Read more ›
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3.0 out of 5 starsErudite, well written, but has little new to say
By Mandrake on 19 May 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
An economics book club choice, and one which took me a long time to read. It's good, but covers very familiar ground in great detail. Here are my notes.

Overall
A well written and erudite book, but one that has little new to say. Since 2008 we have read many books about the financial crisis, and this one seemed to cover a lot of familiar ground. Eichengreen is an expert on both the Great Depression and the Great Recession, but this proves to be more of a hindrance than an advantage as he flounders in minutiae rather than attempting to draw big macro-economic parallels between the two. As a result this book does not succeed in comparing and contrasting the two crises, but instead simply describes them both in great detail. As we all know what happened in both cases, this made for a less than captivating read. He is also very coy about revealing his own opinions, and appears to have little to say himself. The book is overly long, strong on narrative, but leaves little impression as it has no strong opinions to express.
The good
Erudite and well written with astonishing depths of information about some of the characters involved in the drama of the Great Depression.
Re-iterates how time and again politics ultimately trumps economics: e.g.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsWho is right about the causes the great depression in 1930 and great recession of 2008?
By laurens van den muyzenberg on 12 Oct. 2015
Format: Hardcover
This is the first book of the many I have read that compared in a credible way the difference in competence between the two governments that were in charge. The conclusion of the author is that the government directing the great recession succeeded in avoiding as large a level of unemployment and drop of the share values from what they had learned from the Great Depression. On the other hand in the great depression far more radical changes were made in regulation, limiting the banks’ freedom to take risks. His conclusion is that therefore in total the recent government was less competent as we will have another serious recession. He believed the government acceptance of financial institution is too big to fail is fatal flaw in the present system.
It is in a way sad to read that in both disasters better policies could have been chosen. This is what makes this book so interesting and valuable. The author also refers to other prominent academics that analyzed the great depression such as Milton Friedman who drew the wrong conclusions.
President Roosevelt believed that one on the main sources of the depression was excess production, as companies had invested in too much capacity, operating in three shifts producing far more than the available purchasing power in the USA and export potential. The author does not comment on this view
What I like about the book is that the author examines in detail the different views and in most cases presents his conclusion. However in some cases he admits that he has mot arrived as a final conclusion as there are too many factors to consider. The author also describes how important players influenced the outcome as the results of their sometimes wrong beliefs, being very energetic or acting too late. Personalities matter,
It takes time to work through this book. It is definitely worth it
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