We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Trustees of the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation, the Governing Council of the University of Virginia Miller Center of Public Affairs, and the generous encouragement offered by President James Ryan of the University of Virginia, Dean Scott Beardsley of the Darden School, William Antholis, director and CEO of the Miller Center, and President Ana Mari Cauce of the University of Washington.

Sylvie Merian at the Pierpont Morgan Library was a valuable guide to the immense archival resources there. Generally, we are grateful to the directors and staff members of the archives at the Morgan Library and Museum (New York), Guildhall Library (London), Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration (Boston), Butler Library, Columbia University (New York), and the Butte‐Silver Bow Public Archives (Butte).

Charles Calomiris (Columbia University), Avinash Dixit (Princeton), Robert Friedel (University of Maryland), Andrew Metrick (Yale University), John Moen (University of Mississippi), Mary Tone Rodgers (SUNY–Oswego). Richard Sylla (New York University), Jean Strouse (New York City Public Library), and Richard Tedlow (Harvard Business School) provided valuable insights at various stages of the book’s development. Our colleagues at the University of Virginia’s Darden Business School, including Peter Debaere, Marc Lipson, Scott Miller, Michael Schill, Frank Warnock, and the participants in the financial economics seminar, provided especially helpful insights. And we extend thanks to several hundred students in our courses at Darden and participants in professional audiences, whose penetrating questions sharpened our thinking.

We thank Julia Grammer for the preparation of graphical figures, Shawn Ritchie for assistance in information technology, and Tom Marini for bibliographical assistance. Susan Norrisey, reference librarian, exhibited an extraordinary degree of diligence, persistence, and patience in collecting archival trading data; she was tireless in her work, and for this we are especially appreciative. Equally, we are grateful to our administrative assistants, Caitlin Boyer and Gayle Noble, for shouldering tasks that made our writing easier.

Our editors at Wiley brought understanding and perspective to the work. We are grateful for the insights provided by Bill Falloon (executive editor), Purvi Patel (managing editor), and Premkumar Narayanan (content refinement specialist).

Finally, this edition would not have come forth without the patient support of our families and the sacrifices they endured while we prepared this edition.

Any inadvertent errors or omissions that may remain are ours alone.