The Antiplanner’s Library: The Panic of 1907

The U.S. economy had grown rapidly for more than a decade, and even seemed to absorb a major natural disaster in stride. But then an unpredictable event triggered a panic, and suddenly banks closed, stock prices collapsed, and the entire world economy went into turmoil.

The many parallels between the panic of 1907 and the crash of 2008 suggest that this book — written just before the recent turmoil — deserves a close reading. The authors — two professors at the University of Virginia business school — provide an hour-by-hour account of the collapse and how New York bankers, led by J.P. Morgan, responded. But the book also provides a broad view of the conditions that led to the panic and how policy makers can respond to such panics.

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