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The Day the Bubble Burst: A Social History of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 Kindle Edition

by Gordon Thomas (Author), Max Morgan-Witts (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 505 ratings
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The New York Times bestseller that tells the story of an overheated stock market and the financial disaster that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
 
A riveting living history about Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. Captures the era, the intoxicating expectancy, the hope that ruled men’s heart and minds before the bubble burst and the black despair of the decade that followed.
 
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  1. Print length
    819 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Open Road Media
  5. Publication date
    July 1, 2014
  6. File size
    9185 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Max Morgan-Witts is coauthor, with Gordon Thomas, of many books, including The Day the World Ended, Voyage of the Damned, and Guernica. Gordon Thomas is a political and investigative journalist and the bestselling author of over fifty books published worldwide, including Gideon's Spies, Secrets and Lies, and The Pope's Jews. He lives in Ireland and England.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00KQZY1JU
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media (July 1, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 1, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 9185 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 819 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 505 ratings

About the authors

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  1. Gordon Thomas

    Gordon Thomas

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    Gordon Thomas is a political and investigative journalist and the author of 53 books, published in more than 30 countries and in dozens of languages. The total sales of his works exceed 45 million copies.

    Thomas’ most recent bestseller is Gideon’s Spies: Mossad’s Secret Warriors. Published in 16 languages and 40 countries Gideon’s Spies is known throughout the world as the leading resource on Israeli intelligence. An updated edition will be published in 2012 by St. Martin’s Press. Gideon’s Spies was made into a major documentary for Channel Four in Britain, which Thomas wrote and narrated, called The Spy Machine. The Observer called The Spy Machine a “clear” picture of Israeli intelligence operations, and The Times called it “impressive,” and ”chilling.”

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  2. Max Morgan Witts

    Max Morgan Witts

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    Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
505 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Diversity
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, Captivating, a Definite 6
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2014
Verified Purchase
When I first started reading, I thought this book would be over my head, but after a few pages I was hooked on the fascinating lives of incredibly rich people we’ve heard about but never like this! The Day the Bubble Burst covers the history of the stock market from the middle 1800s to the mid -1900s. But it’s not a boring history. It is about real people, rich and poor, in real situations who believed in the slogan “Everyone deserves to be rich.” Wall Street in New York became their god, the stock market their highway to a financial heaven. There are shocking revelations of complex manipulations, embezzlements, and ramifications that adversely affected almost the entire world when the market crashed.
The author is an omniscient storyteller that made me feel as if he knew each person. His extensive research is so smoothly weaved into the story that I felt as if he was actually in the secret business meetings with J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Jack Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover and many others, in the homes of the rich and poor listening to their plans and dreams, in the streets during the celebrations when the market was up and the chaos when the market was down.
There is so much I want to say about this book, but I would spoil it for the reader. It is captivating, a definite 6!
3 people found this helpful
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xBryMilx
4.0 out of 5 stars Lot's of Characters!
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2024
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Overall I enjoyed this book. The difficulty for me was the number of characters to keep track of. On many occasions the author would discuss the character then move on and then re-introduce the character again later in order to keep a timeline going. This happened over and over throughout the book. In many cases the author provided some proir details to help you figure out who it was. However, not in all cases. I had to use the search feature on Kindle to look up the character so I could know what was going on and who was being discussed. By the last quarter of the book I knew most by memory.

Also, the beginning drags on quite a bit. I almost stopped reading it but ultimately stuck with it and I am glad I did.

I find it interesting that many of the wealthy people mentioned in the book are idolized even today yet many made their fortunes off of the less fortunate through insider information and forming consortiums to manipulate stock prices. Although what they did was legal, they knew that they were increasing their wealth at the expense of others. I doubt they cared much.

Overall, this was a good read.
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Brian Swart from South Africa
5.0 out of 5 stars Better than a fast-moving thriller
Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2014
Verified Purchase
Historical events have always interested me.

This is a really wonderful book. Certainly up there with the best I have ever read. It contains everything a great thriller should... shady characters, smooth operators, high fliers, markets experts, good guys and bad guys and, of course, the humble hopefuls... all in it waiting for their ship to steam in.

And when it didn't... millions of lives were wrecked.

The research to the tragedy is immaculate. While some of the wealthy survived, many didn't, but the outcome for the little fellows, as set out in the Epilogue, was catastrophic and, at times, tear-jerking even though the drama played itself out nearly eighty years ago.

It is difficult to believe that a report on investing and banking could develop at such a frenetic pace but, in truth, I simply could not put it down. It is written in such a way that the pace at which critical events occurred gives the impression of a marathon being run at a sprint.

I knew, of course, that the crash came on 29 October 1929 and that it was a prime factor contributing to the great depression that followed. But that is all I knew.

Now I know why it happened... Who the leading players were... Who won and who lost... And why it is unlikely to happen again.

Or will it?

This book answers all the questions.

It is a great buy.
12 people found this helpful
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Spark
4.0 out of 5 stars ... interesting story of the events leading up to the great stock market crash in 1929 and how various people ...
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2016
Verified Purchase
This was a very interesting story of the events leading up to the great stock market crash in 1929 and how various people acted leading up to the great crash. Also it tells how the stock market crash impacted both those who helped bring it about as well as some of those innocent people who lost their savings through bank failures.
Because there were so many people mentioned in the book, and jumping around in the telling of the stories of all those involved, it was a struggle for me to remember who some of the people were.
It was amusing to me that years after the great crash, many people thought that a great stock market collapse could not happen again. With all the new laws enacted in order to correct the excesses leading up to the 1929 crash, as late as 1979 it was felt that such an event could not happen again. and yet in 2008 we again experienced a severe economic decline and a major drop in the stock market as a result of the greed on the part of a segment of the American populace.
18 people found this helpful
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Gypsy
5.0 out of 5 stars Fast paced and well written.
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2019
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The book is very informative, with well researched facts and fascinating depictions of actual participants in the major economic collapse. Even though I knew little about the market, I found this book captivating. Brilliant depiction of lives large and small, and how they were impacted by the crash. I'm going to read it again as I know I'll get even more out of it.
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Tony Vecchiarelli
3.0 out of 5 stars Detailed account
Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2019
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He gives a step by step account of the events. By the time the end comes, it's almost anticlimactic. It's still not clear to me WHY the crash happened, and he admits that no one really knows. The banks demanded more than ten percent margin on the prices of stocks and very stupid people were investing with borrowed money. It was a frenzy of greed. That much is obvious.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars The research that went into this is amazing and you feel that you are actually in the ...
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2018
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So interesting. The research that went into this is amazing and you feel that you are actually in the room with the main characters as the story unfolds. It almost reads as a novel but everything is true and dialogue comes from letters and journals. The story delves into the psychology of the public as the market heated up and was manipulated by the machinations of the insiders and money men. You also learn about those who understood that the market was dangerously heated up and who tried to prevent it unsuccessfully. Highly recommended.
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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars An impressive telling of the market froth before the bubble burst.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2018
Verified Purchase
A brilliantly evocative piece that looks at an eclectic cast of characters in the months leading up to the Crash of 1929. While most, but by no means all, were Bankers and Financiers, we do have a more modest collection of characters, from the young girl peddling bootleg booze in Flint to a shoeshine boy on Wall street itself. But all of their lives were, in some way, tied up with the tragedy that was going to engulf them all as the stock-market bubble burst. Something that was predicted by some (Bernard Baruch and Joe Kennedy famously liquidated positions before the market crashed) and blithely ignored by others (such as William Crapo Durant) who went all but bust as a result.

Overall a rollicking good read.
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Tim Pate
5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down
Reviewed in Australia on November 20, 2018
Verified Purchase
It has captured perfectly the people who were at the forefront of the boom and the Mood of the roaring twenties. This is a story of people, not the technicalities of share trading and it tells it very well. An unforgettable story.
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Euphemia Black
4.0 out of 5 stars A history book that reads like a novel.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 22, 2017
Verified Purchase
I do not really see much point in reviewing a book that was published in 1979; Amazon should flag up the original dates of publication in their kindle store. However, I found the book interesting but confusing. It switched from one character to another too quickly and it was hard to follow the thread of each one. I think they should have started with a brief description of the actual day of the crash and then gone into the background, as the build- up was taking too long and I was tempted to skim. I still do not understand the stock market- a glossary would have helped. It is plotted like a novel but it is an important historical account - at some point I may read it more carefully; hence 4 stars.
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Bebe18
4.0 out of 5 stars Easy to read and understand
Reviewed in Australia on June 13, 2014
Verified Purchase
I have been curious about the Crash for a long time and was pleased to find such a well written, easy to understand version of the events of 1929. Pity nothing was learnt from this to prevent the recent Crash. Greed is so destructive.
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Burcenstein
5.0 out of 5 stars A thrilling read on the historical events that led to the Great Depression of the 1930ies- highly recommended
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2018
Verified Purchase
An excellent account of the run-up to the "Black Friday" in October 1929; it is amazing as to how delusional economics ( or, more precisely, common greed) led to the financial meltdown which resulted in a decade-long depression and, subsequently, World War II ( Hitler would have never been afforded the opportunity to take power without this man-made economic disaster). At times the reader will struggle to believe in the authenticity of the historical events- still, they happened. And, of course, there are parallels to nowadays' world, think of the Dotcom bubble in the early Noughties, the Crash in 2008 or, right now, the hype about the so-called "cryptocurrencies"...
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