1873

***LONGLISTED FOR THE FT BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2026*** The book to read right now [is 1873] . . . All of us are reading this' Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, The TimesFrom the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lords of Finance comes a brilliant account of the earliest truly global financial calamity.On Friday, 9 May 1873 the Vienna stock market collapsed. Four months later Wall Street was in trouble. Elsewhere, as panic selling spread across financial markets, some countries defaulted on their debts, while the Bank of England was forced to raise its rates to their highest level in a century. It was the first global crash in history. And it was to have calamitous consequences.In his powerful new book, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lords of Finance tells the epic story of that crash and explores its economic and human costs. He describes how the growth of the international bond market in the 1850s and 60s funded a frenzy of speculation in railways,