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| Diaries are always so serious |
Benjamin Roth's diary is a month-by-month account of one of the U.S.'s most socially and financially turbulent eras. The contagion began in the equity markets, as investors discovered assets they'd thought a bargain were worthless. As the economy cratered, unemployment spread; mortgages went into default; millions lost their homes1. Banks failed – and in many cases, illegal activity and insider kickbacks gave them the final push over the edge. Radicalism was on the rise. Some thought they were witnessing the death of capitalism.
This book's subject is the Great Depression, of course, but doesn't it sound eerily similar to 2007-2009? That's ultimately why I picked up "The Great Depression: A Diary": to see what lessons the past holds for the present.
For the first time in my personal business life I am witnessing a major financial crisis. I am anxious to learn the lessons of this depression. To the man past middle life it spells tragedy and disaster but to those of us in the middle thirties it may be a great school of experience out of which some worthwhile lesson might be salvaged.
—Benjamin Roth, June 5, 1931
