Book Club: 'A History of the United States in Five Crashes'

Go on a journey through the five significant stock market crashes in the past century to better understand how they defined the United States financial markets today.

The book dissects--The Panic of 1907: The Knickerbocker Trust failed, after a blatant attempt to manipulate the copper market which led to a disastrous run on the banks; Black Tuesday (1929): The newly created Federal Reserve misguidedly adjusted interest rates, while investment trusts, the darlings of that decade, became the catalyst that burst the bubble leading swiftly to the Great Depression; Black Monday (1987): A new tool called "Portfolio Insurance" perversely led to increased losses, and corporate raiders drove stocks above their intrinsic values; the Great Recession (2008):  Widespread mortgage defaults magnified by poorly understood derivatives, catapulted the nation's largest banks and much of the economy into a downward spiral; The Flash Crash (2010): One investment manager, using a dangerous runaway algorithm, reacted to the Greece economic crisis, sending the stock market into an unprecedentedly sudden plunge, with the Dow shed 998.5 points in just minutes.

A History of the United States in Five Crashes compellingly illustrates the connections between these major financial collapses and reveals the solid, clear-cut lessons they offer for preventing the next calamity.