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)

Should be read, not listened to

The narrator makes many references to tables and graphs that a listener can't possibly reference

For this topic, more useful than sight-reading.

Like a series of well-organized, excellently delivered Economics-Lectures, making technical and dense material approachable, comprehensible, interesting and, ultimately, useful.

Long history

Give you a very big picture. May help you invest a bit. But for average guys Warren Buffet’s advise is more apt “dollar cost averaging in a broad index fund,” and return to work.

Great Book, Poorly Presented - Get an E-book!

What a great book - really puts a lot of tendencies in the economics of the day into a historical perspective. In this respect, it really clears a lot of fog and makes many things clear. However, this book has a very large amount of diagrams and charts which not only illustrate the text, but develop its ideas in a graphical form. Without these graphs the book sounds weird with constant referrals to the stuff you can not see. More so, parts of text - historical anecdotal chunks of data - are simply omitted... So, before spending your credits, find an e-book somewhere on the net - without this aid you are only getting 50% of this book, which is a pity, as this book, being a quite serious research, is, at the same time, is instantly accessible even to a humble armchair economist like myself.

Essential Listening!

The authors have collected an immense amount of data to not only show what went wrong to cause our current economic crisis, but to also point out what is likely to happen in the coming years. It's an eye opening look at our government and is essential listening for all. A true masterpiece!

Not a good audiobook experience

What disappointed you about This Time Is Different?

This book is highly explicative of financial factors affecting crisis, but is not a good auidobook. Continual references to tables and graphs make it impossible to follow without the PDF (if I could carry along the charts i would just buy the book). In my case, heraing the book while commuting was a less than pleasurable experince, and i hold a undergraduate and graduate degree in finance and business.

What could Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

The book itself might be a fine read, i just completely disagree on the conversion (in this case) from book to audiobook since it is so visual and technical in nature.

What three words best describe Sean Pratt’s performance?

concise dry teacher-like

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

not that i can think of right now

Any additional comments?

i gave it a shot, i heard almost five out of the eight hours trying to see if it "got better", i dont know if it is too late or maybe you dont have this policy but is there any way to get a refund?

Does not work well as an audio book.

would like my money back.

Unsuitable for Audio Presentation

This book is completely unsuitable for an audio format. The data is intended to be presented visually and the print is filled with graphical data. Unless you want to hear continual references to visual data that you can't see, don't buy this audio book!

Great content but not suitable as audiobook

The content of the book is great with its long historical view on souvereign debt defaults. After hearing the audiobook it is clear to me that the current developments in Greece etc are not a unique events.

I agree with previous reviews that the audiobook format was very bad. The references to tables and charts gets the listener out of track. Audible and/or the authors should have edited the text before making it into an audiobook.
Therefore:
Grade for content: 5 stars
Grade for format: 0 (zero) stars
All in all: 2 stars

not a good audio book

I love the idea of this book. However, the charts and figures do not fit the format of an audio presentation. If you want to read this book I would highly recommend getting the physical entity.