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Echoes of 1929: As George Santayana warned, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
- February 1, 2026: Vol. 19, Number 2

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Echoes of 1929: As George Santayana warned, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it

by Geoffrey Dohrmann

As attendees of the Fall PREA Conference recently gathered to hear Andrew Ross Sorkin speak — and received copies of his book 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History — the timing could not have been more prescient. Sorkin’s reflections on the speculative mania, regulatory gaps and economic fragility that preceded the Great Crash of 1929 offer more than historical insight — they serve as a mirror to the present moment.

Nearly a century after Black Tuesday, the financial world finds itself once again at a crossroads. Although the nature of the instruments and institutions has evolved, the underlying psychology and systemic vulnerabilities bear a striking resemblance to those of the late 1920s. The question is not whether history wi

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