The Great Wave
by David Hackett Fischer · first published 1996
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"The history of prices is the history of change," writes David Hackett Fischer in this broad sweep of western history from the middle ages to our own time. His primary sources are price records, which are more abundant for the study of historical change than any other type of quantifiable data. Fischer uses these materials to frame a narrative of price-movements in western history from the eleventh century to the present. He finds that prices tended to rise throughout this long period, but most of their increase happened in four great waves of inflation - which he calls the price-revolutions
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Economics: The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Ebb and Flow of History. David Hackett Fisher. This book is incredibly, incredibly prescient. Written in 1997, almost predicts the current financial situation. If you want…
on “Ask HN: Good books?” ↗…mostly because despots have had a really hard time keeping themselves from debasing the currency over history. I suggest reading this for some broad historical perspective: http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Wave-Revolutions-History/dp/...
on “The Economy” ↗…market may be interpreted to suggest that mankind will never learn from its past mistakes, or become self-aware in a macro-economic sense. The historical study presented in David Hackett Fischer's The Great Wave (Oxford University Press, 1999), however, presents a meticulously argued case that the periodic crises in human history are becoming steadily less volatile, which suggests that some kind of species-wide…
on “Grand Supercycle” ↗