Best books on articles on financial crisis?

April 18, 2010 7:20 AM

What are the best articles and books that thoughtfully look back and analyze the financial crisis so far and its causes?
posted by shivohum to Work & Money (13 answers total)

Econned.
posted by dfriedman at 7:29 AM on April 18, 2010

Simon Johnson and James Kwak's 13 bankers, Micheal Lewis' The Big Short, House of Cards and Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail are probably some of the most talked about.

Interestingly Lewis' first book, written in the 80s actually talks about the genesis of the whole mortgage derivative stuff that played a key roll in the downfall.
posted by delmoi at 7:34 AM on April 18, 2010

I liked John Lancasters articles in the London Review of Books, at least from a UK perspective - Cityphilia, Cityphobia, It’s Finished, Bankocracy, The Great British Economy Disaster. He's also got a book out Whoops! on the same subject but I've not read it yet.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:39 AM on April 18, 2010

Seconding Lanchester. His latest book is easy for the layperson.
posted by larry_darrell at 7:49 AM on April 18, 2010

Here's a great post on the blue with lots of additional resources (though perhaps lacking in hindsight as it's from 2008).
posted by drpynchon at 7:59 AM on April 18, 2010

Alan Greenspan wrote a nice article on the crisis that is reasonably accessible to non-economists.
posted by deadweightloss at 8:03 AM on April 18, 2010

Financial Fiasco
posted by martinrebas at 8:08 AM on April 18, 2010

I also really enjoyed Michael Lewis's article largely about how Steve Eisman saw things as they were unraveling and made a mint predicting the credit crisis.
posted by drpynchon at 8:20 AM on April 18, 2010

John Quiggin's Zombie Economics is due to come out with Princeton University Press later this year (here's the proposed dust jacket); there's a draft of the book here.
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:24 AM on April 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

This American Life's Giant Pool of Money
posted by 4ster at 3:26 PM on April 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

This American Life's Inside Job
This American Life's Return To The Giant Pool of Money
More Planet Money episodes than I care to mention.

Michael Lewis' article is now actually a full length book. It's currently sitting on my nightstand, and a very accessible read.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 3:49 AM on April 19, 2010

Bailout Nation is an excellent read.
posted by zen_spider at 12:33 PM on April 19, 2010

Stuff I've read and found insightful (not always in a direct way):

Michael Lewis: Liar's Poker; Panic!; The Big Short
Andrew Ross Sorkin: Too Big To Fail
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan; Fooled by Randomness
Dan Ariely: Predictably Irrational
Niall Ferguson: The Ascent of Money
George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller: Animal Spirits
John R. Talbott: The 86 Biggest Lies on Wall Street

I'd say Liar's Poker, The Big Short, and Too Big To Fail were the most relevant in terms of understanding the current crisis.
posted by vidur at 12:08 AM on May 24, 2010