Financial Crisis Books

As the stock market continues its massive decline, I find myself wanting to read more books about economics and financial history.

I've read The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance (which I highly recommend) and The Power of Gold: the History of an Obsession; I'd like to read the recently published books about Warren Buffett and Goldman Sachs and there are some other books that seem relevant.

• Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz (1971)
• Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises by Charles Kindleberger (1975) -- click here to read an excerpt and click here to view the table of contents.
• The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson (2008) -- to be published in November 2008
• Essays on the Great Depression by Ben Bernanke (2004) - click here to read an excerpt and click here to view the table of contents;
• The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman (2000) -- click here to read an excerpt and click here to view the table of contents
• Origins of the Crash: The Great Bubble and Its Undoing by Roger Lowenstein (2004) -- click here to read an excerpt and click here to view the table of contents
• A Short History of Financial Euphoria by John Kenneth Galbraith (1990) -- click here to view the table of contents
• Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein (1998) -- click here to view the table of contents
• The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It by Robert J Schiller (2008) -- click here to view the table of contents
• The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith (1997) -- click here to view the table of contents.
• Once in Golconda: A True Drama of Wall Street 1920-1938 by John Brooks (1981) -- click here to view the table of contents.
• Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street by Michael Lewis -- click here to view the table of contents
• When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein (2000) -- click here to read an excerpt and click here to view the table of contents
• The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Street's Bullish 60s by John Brooks (1998) -- click here to view the table of contents
• Risk and Business Cycles: New And Old Austrian Perspectives by Tyler Cowen (1998) -- click here to view the table of contents

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder

Many of my friends idolize Warren Buffett.

Truthfully, I don't know much about him so I'm happy to hear that Alice Schroeder, former managing director at Morgan Stanley, has just written a biography of Warren Buffett after spending approximately two thousands hours interviewing and observing Buffett.

The book is titled The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life and refers to one of Buffett's folksy sayings about success: "Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill."

As usual, I heard about this book from the New York Times -- Janet Maslin's "The Richest Man and How He Grew (and Grew His Company, Too)."

I have no doubt that my local library will carry this unprecedented biography of "The Oracle of Omaha" (after all, even Walmart is selling this book) but I may want to purchase a copy anyway.

Click here to read an excerpt.