The Great Crash, 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith Book Review

In the book THE GREAT CRASH 1929, John Kenneth Galbraith, the author, starts the book by showing us the behavior of the stock market, the banks, and what the presidents were doing prior to 1929. Galbraith does an exceptional job executing the build-up to the great depression and how they all led up to the crash and what could have been done during that time to prevent it from happening. Galbraith does not only show what events led up to the great crash but he also shows the behavior of important people and how they reacted to the build-up of the great depression. To support his clause, Galbraith uses information from pamphlets, the stock market prices of the time, public documents, and books.

The book starts off with an explanation of the stock market and how people would buy stocks. With people buying stocks, the market would get inflated, and when anything that goes up it must go down. The book then transitioned to the actions of the banks and how they reacted to the build-up of the stock market. While showcasing the actions of the banks and what the banks officially released to the public, Galbraith also showed what the banks could have done in order to prevent the market from crashing. Galbraith at the same time also showed the actions of the president and how the new election and the coming of a new president affected the economy. Galbraith showed many ways in how the banks and the president could have prevented the great crash, one way he showed this was that the president and banks could have slowly deflated the market and prevented the crash. In 1928 and early 1929 the market slowly started to rise and kept on getting higher, until it started to slowly decrease. The way it decreased was that it would go down and go back up by a little and this kept happening up until the market crashed. The ending of the book showed the new deal and how the U.S slowly recovered from the great depression. 

Galbraith is a profound writer, he gained his credibility through the many books he published. Galbraith was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, and public official. Being an economist a diplomat and a public official makes him a very credible person to write about the great depression. Galbraith has also written books like The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned The Free Market And Why Liberals Should Too, The Affluent Society, The New Industrial State. These are only a few of the books that ended up building Galbraith’s credible reputation which earned him the presidential medal of freedom twice. 

Throughout the book, Galbraith does an excellent job of using information from credible sources in order to support his argument. In his book, Galbraith uses information from the stock market of the time many times in order to show how the market was inflated or how the market would rise and fall. An example of this is, “It opened at 30, reached a high of 36, and closed at 36, or 18.5 above the fraction.”. This quote from the book uses information from the 1928-1929 stock market. By using the stock market itself, Galbraith uses very credible information in order to back up his point. A big part of writing a book is being able to back your points up with credible information, and Galbraith does this perfectly when he uses statistics from the stock market. Not only does him using the statistics from the stock market make the book more credible but it also makes the book more informational. Another credible source Galbraith used were newspapers from the time of the great crash. An example of a newspaper Galbraith used was The Philadelphia Record, a quote he used from this newspaper was “The Philadelphia Record was led to describe the president as “easily the most commanding figure in the modern science of ‘ engineering statesmanship.’”” This quote from the The Philadelphia Record is a very credible source for Galbraith to use in order to back up his argument. Galbraith used the credible source of newspapers in order to back a previous statement stated by himself. Essentially he is already backing a credible source, so he is presenting the reader with two very credible sources in order to make his statements more reinforced. 

In order to make a successful book one must have all their points be reinforced by credible source, they also, the author, have to be a very credible person. Someone who doesnt have much experience in a subject will most likely not make it big with their first book, however someone who has many years of experience and has studied the subject for years will be more succsesful due to the fact that they are more credible. Galbraith is an outstanding author who has checked both of these requirements. Galbraith himself is a very credible person who has a Phd from the University of California. This isnt the only thing on Galbraiths profile, he was also a professor at Hardvard and Princeton and last but not least he was “a key advisor to Presidant John F. Kennedy, Galbraith served as ambassador to India from 1961 to 1963”. This information alone is enough to make Galbraith one of the most credible people who are worthy of writing this book, however Galbraith didnt stop there as he used more credible information from that time period. Examples of this is when he uses the stock market, newspapers, pamphlets and more in order to back his argument. All of hard work eventually paid of when he got praise from the New York Times, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH and many more newspaper companies which shows how good his book was. 

Galbraith does an excellent job of writing the book in chronological order which makes it easier to understand for the reader, he also does an outstanding job of placing credible information throughout his book. With the use of primary sources he fortitudes his argument and makes it a better book. 

Citations

Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Great Crash: 1929. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2009.

“John Kenneth Galbraith | Biography & Facts.” 2019. In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Kenneth-Galbraith.