This Time is Different - Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Broché)

Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing, and recovering their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different" - claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong.
Covering sixty-six countries across five continents and eight centuries, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises - including government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes—from medieval currency debasements to today's subprime catastrophe. Reinhart and Rogoff provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations.
An important book that will affect policy discussions for a long time to come, This Time Is Different exposes centuries of financial missteps.