Lessons From 'The Panic of 1907'

When The Business Press Maven first cast his eye for business journalism onto business books, it was with the ultimate hope of familiarizing investors with historical insight, which is more common in books than what is demonstrated in newsrooms and trading floors -- where yesterday's news and trades qualify as fixtures from a bygone era.

This short-term orientation has a long-term drawback: When journalists or traders try to make a parallel with history, they invariably pick the most recent time that something similar happened. But while history repeats itself -- as many losing military generals can attest -- it hardly does so tidily. Many errors are born assuming that it does.

That is why I am going to grant The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm, a resounding "Help" label from The Business Press Maven, putting it in the probable running for Top 10 Business Press Maven Books of 2007. In case you still don't get it, this is very high praise.

It even starts with a quote attributed to Mark Twain that should be the guiding light of every investor and journalist: "History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes." The Panic of 1907 was written by Robert F. Bruner and Sean D. Carr. Bruner is dean of the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and Carr is director of corporate innovation programs there. But try not to hold their academic pedigree against them.