Originally published in 1955, Galbraith's book examines the 1929 financial collapse. This new edition is being published on the 80th anniversary of the Great Crash, even as Americans look for perspective on the current global financial crisis.

John Kenneth Galbraith, born in 1908, was one of the twentieth century's most influential economists. He produced dozens of books and hundreds of articles on economics, politics, foreign policy and the arts, his most famous including the popular trilogy on economics, American Capitalism (1952), The Affluent Society (1958), and The New Industrial State (1967). He taught at Harvard University for many years and was also active in politics, serving as an adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. James K. Galbraith, born in 1952, teaches at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, and is the author, most recently, of The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too (Free Press).