This Time Is Different

Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

By: Carmen Reinhart, Kenneth Rogoff

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

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. This book proves that premise wrong.

Covering 66 countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes - from medieval currency debasements to today's subprime catastrophe.

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, leading economists whose work has been influential in the policy debate concerning the current financial crisis, provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations. The authors draw important lessons from history to show us how much - or how little - we have learned. Using clear, sharp analysis and comprehensive data, Reinhart and Rogoff document that financial fallouts occur in clusters and strike with surprisingly consistent frequency, duration, and ferocity. They examine the patterns of currency crashes, high and hyperinflation, and government defaults on international and domestic debts - as well as the cycles in housing and equity prices, capital flows, unemployment, and government revenues around these crises.

While countries do weather their financial storms, Reinhart and Rogoff prove that short memories make it all too easy for crises to recur. This Time Is Different exposes centuries of financial missteps.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2009 Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff (P)2009 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

" This Time Is Different doesn't simply explain what went wrong in our most recent crisis. This book also provides a roadmap of how things are likely to pan out in the years to come.... This Time Is Different is an important addition to the literature of financial history." ( Wall Street Journal)

It's Just a Long Series of Descriptions of Charts

I think writing on financial crisis can be interesting like Charles P. Kindleberger's Manias, Panics, and Crashes or Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. But this requires setting of the historical scene and character development and a humanistic look at bygone times. This isn't at all what Reinhart and Rogoff are trying to do in This Time Is Different. They offer a 5000 mile view of what hundreds of these sorts of financial disasters have in common using a universalist perspective and all set in a dry pedestrian prose. They have some interesting insights but it doesn't make for fun listening. Most of the audiobook consists of just elaborating on the graphs. I can see the graphs but don't you have some interesting historical insights to add? They pointlessly cite past economists for having written some paper on obvious things that don't require any citations. They annoyingly repeat the book's title way too many times along with the trite idea rehashed from all the other financial crisis books about which they don't have anything more interesting to say. They keep calling the current crisis we're in as the Second Great Contraction and use their strange, newly coined phrase excessively. Like most economists they have too high an opinion of their own limited findings and their field of study in general. I could go on...the whole thing is excruciatingly painful to listen to.

The careless reading by Sean Pratt didn't help. All his many small misreadings are too numerous to list. The most glaring was that he read the probability of x, P(x), as "P meaning that x."

This isn't something to enjoy on your morning commute but something to help you through a difficult book if it were required reading in an economics class.

Full focus needed - the language demands attention

Not a good choice if you use to listen while doing other things. The narrator tries hard to make it more comprehensible by reading slowly, but the lack of storytelling narrative makes it really easy to lose focus.

Adam Smith Their Not

What did you like best about This Time Is Different? What did you like least?

The most valuable part of the book was the data. The least valuable was the analysis.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Put more thought into the analysis.

Have you listened to any of Sean Pratt???s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Did This Time Is Different inspire you to do anything?

No

Any additional comments?

No

of course it's not different this time

a must-read review of the history of financial crises. for all of our hopes that we've reached the end of history, we never do. this is essential reading for everyone in the West who ever wonders where the economy (whatever country you live in) is going next. straight-forward, easy to digest history that's interesting. ...then you won't be surprised when the news plays out now in this crisis the same way it's done in the past...

Well researched but repetitive...

Repetitive to the point of confusion. In each chapter, the authors initially present their research in a clear and detailed manner but then they repeat the concept so many times throughout that chapter to the point wherein it becomes confusing.

This book is about how excessive debt leads to financial crises. That’s kind of all you need to know...after which you get 8 hours of evidence and arguments in support of that one principle.

This Time is Different

In this book, the authors take you through eight centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes to today's financial crisis. They clearly illustrate why financial commentary stating that 'That This Time is Different' is a warning sign that things aren't different. In fact--they never are. Those interested in avoiding the next financial meltdown should take time to read this book.

If you thought defaults are an exception

You are in for a treat. It gets a bit boring, like other reviewers said:not good for audio. But it has a lot of data in it, it is just a petty that the author can not make heads or tails of the data. He tries to see if certain countries default and others do not, but almost all governments have failed. He gets into a lot of problems mixing up countries and governments. If you say Spain defaulted 13 times, you better say the Spanish government defaulted 13 times. Because if you try to say that a government dumps the problem on the doorstep of the next government and you use the country name, you get: Spain dumps the problem on the doorstep of Spain. I think the failure to see government as a seperate group of people in a country, that has a monopoly of the initiation of violence, causes a alot of confusion.
He also tries to compare developing and advanced countries as an explanation, which also fails. Then he takes domestic debt into consideration, which also does not explain everything.
An interesting angle would be to see if governments that set up an empire fail more than those who don't. Controlling an empire is always financed with debt and fiat money, as direct taxation would bring revolt and put a stop to empire building. The Spanish empire collapsed and resulted in 13 defaults (so far, the next one is on the way). Hungary/Austria/Turkey had serious defaults. The UK not so much and the USA not so much as well (unless you count 97% devaluation since 1913 as a default), but these things take a long time to build up and a long time to unwind.

Perfect bedtime material

Super interesting on one level. Completely dense and boring on another. It's perfect for bedtime! With almost nine hours of material, you almost never hear the same section twice. Before you know it, you're off to dreamland. Well worth the money IMO!

Very hard to listen to!

The book is very in-depth but very very technical. This is a book that should be physically read and not listened to. It is very, very difficult to listen to such a technical book with lots of statistical data.

this was recommended on cnn

the book is factual, but it keeps droning on and on. The takeaway is that financial crashes are inevitable because situations evolve to make them happen. some countries get away from this. most small countries do not.