Why the crash of 1929 still matters

A revisit of the OG market collapse is an unsettling mirror to our present times

- SRINATH SRIDHARAN

HERE ARE MOMENTS in financial history that refuse to remain historical. They return not as anniversaries or archival curiosities, but as behavioural patterns that reappear whenever confidence outpaces caution.The crash of 1929 is one such moment.Nearly a century later, it continues to shape how markets are regulated, how risk is misunderstood, and how power behaves when intoxicated by prosperity. In 1929, Sorkin does not simply retell a famous market collapse. He examines the mindset that made it possible, and in doing so, raises uncomfortable questions about whether modern finance is any wiser than it was then.

This is a book about belief. Belief that markets self-correct. Belief that leverage is innovation. Belief that good times can be engineered to last forever. Sorkin takes readers into the late 1920s, an era when America was convinced it had discovered a new economic rhythm. Credit was abundant. Speculation was normalised. Regulation was viewed as an obstacle to progress. The stock market was no longer a venue for capital allocation. It had become the emotional centre of national optimism. Participation was framed as patriotism. Scepticism was dismissed as timidity.

Sorkin captures this mood with precision and restraint. He shows how easy credit and minimal oversight allowed a financial ecosystem to flourish that rewarded speed, secrecy and scale. Stock pools—legal yet deeply manipulative—enabled powerful financiers to accumulate shares quietly, inflate prices artificially and exit profitably while drawing small investors into the illusion of rising wealth. Market opacity was a feature.