– James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –
As the crisis has deepened we’ve had to search farther back in history for precedents, and with deflation at hand much of the debate now centers on how similar the next while will be to the Great Depression.
But what if, rather than the 1930s, we ought to be thinking about the revolutionary crisis of the 18th century, or even further back to the 14th century lending and spending spree that ended with the Black Death?
A reading of The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History, by Brandeis University historian David Hackett Fischer will ring a lot of bells.
Fischer’s book, published in 1996, looks at price data back to the time of Babylonian king Hammurabi, and actual series of prices back to Europe in the 13th century.
