Why bother with a book written three quarters of a century ago about the 1930s world economic crisis? Didn't John Kenneth Galbraith publish the definitive work on the subject in 1955? Historians write with the benefit of distance and perspective. But there is nothing quite like a good contemporary account. Richard Lewinsohn combines wit, perspicacity and a sceptical eye for the follies of his own times with a rare historical perspective. It took journalistic courage to argue in 1934 that the crisis he chronicled - though the greatest in history - was neither unprecedented nor likely to be the last of its kind. The financial upheavals since 2007 and the economic impact they have had underline Lewinsohn's wisdom.