1 Financial Crisis: a Hardy Perennial 1 2 Anatomy of a Typical Crisis 21 3 Speculative Manias 33 4 Fueling the Flames: the Expansion of Credit 55 5 The Critical Stage 77 6 Euphoria and Economic Booms 97 7 International Contagion 106 8 Bubble Contagion: Tokyo to Bangkok to New York 123 9 Frauds, Swindles, and the Credit Cycle 143 10 Policy Responses: Letting it Burn Out, and Other Devices 176 11 The Domestic Lender of Last Resort 195 12 The International Lender of Last Resort 211 13 The Lessons of History and the Most Tumultuous Decades Ever 239