A Short History of Financial Euphoria

With all the financial know-how and experience of the wizards on Wall Street and elsewhere, how is it that the market still goes boom and bust? How can people be so willing to get caught up in the mania of speculation when history tells us that a collapse is almost sure to follow? In this primer, the renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith reviews the major speculative episod...

With all the financial know-how and experience of the wizards on Wall Street and elsewhere, how is it that the market still goes boom and bust? How can people be so willing to get caught up in the mania of speculation when history tells us that a collapse is almost sure to follow? In this primer, the renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith reviews the major speculative episodes of the last three centuries - from the 17th century tulip craze to the calamitous junk-bond follies of the 1980s. His insights provide important lessons on speculative economics, and demonstrate conclusively that money and intelligence are not necessarily linked.

约翰·肯尼思·加尔布雷思，著名经济学家。1908年出生于加拿大安大略省，1934年在加利福尼亚大学获博士学位，后来成为剑桥大学研究员，在那里首次接触凯恩斯经济学。后在哈佛大学和普林斯顿大学任教。曾任哈佛大学经济学荣誉教授、美国艺术文学院和美国经济学会会长。二战期间，他曾任美国物价管理局副局长，负责预防通货膨胀对战争军事产生不利影响。

他著有40多本经济学著作。其中包括《富裕社会》（The Affluent Society）、《美好社会》（The Good Society）和《1929年大崩盘》（The Great Crash 1929）等。他曾被哈佛大学、牛津大学、巴黎大学和莫斯科大学授予荣誉学位。1997年被授予加拿大总督功勋奖、罗伯特·F. 肯尼迪图书终身成就奖。2000年在白宫被授予总统自由勋章。2006年去世。