What if the financial crisis you never learned about in school is the one that built the world you live in today? In 1873, the richest family in human history watched the global financial system they helped create collapse around them — and could do nothing to stop it. This is a summary and analysis of Liaquat Ahamed's 1873 — a book that reveals how one catastrophic year produced the world's first global depression, gave birth to modern antisemitism, and created the monetary architecture we still live inside today. From the moment "a monstrous yell went up and seemed to literally shake the building" of the New York Stock Exchange, nothing was ever the same again. "The seeds of every bust are planted during the preceding upswing." If that sentence makes you think about today — it should. Read this summary. Then read the world differently.
