From the publisher:

So could the Second Great Depression, the global economic crisis of the 21st century, have been predicted? What do politicians and economists overlook in the boom years leading up to the crash? To answer this question, the authors provided a detailed description of every economic crisis in every country over the past 800 years: consumer price indices, exchange rates, GDP, public debt, credit history, etc. Figures and facts are all about how plunged into crisis a variety of economies and how they overcame it.
The previously disparate facts are systematized, comprehended, which allows the authors to give reasonable answers to a number of practical questions: Are the crises of rich and poor countries unique? And what distinguishes the crises of the past from the crises of the present? Is the crisis contagious? Why do some countries not know what a crisis is?
This material is unique. It has never been published before. The book becomes a reference book, a detailed guide to crises. The information is presented in convenient graphs and tables so that the reader can make his own analysis of any default, any debt crisis or banking crisis.

From the Russian Bastion:

This is the first time a study of this magnitude has been carried out. Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland Carmen Reinhart and famous American economist Kenneth Rogoff in their book summarized data on economic, financial, banking crises over the past 800 years. True, most of the information is given for the last 250-300 years.

The main difficulty lies in the unavailability of financial and economic information, in particular, due to the lack of official data, or the failure to provide information by the financial authorities of the analyzed countries.

An interesting fact that can be drawn from the book is that over time, the frequency of certain crises increases, and their duration decreases. This trend is especially visible in the 20th century.

But each crisis is individual, each crisis has its own causes, however, the consequences almost always coincide. That is why they are so difficult to predict.

Over time, with the complication of the financial world order, the strength of crises also increases. And because of the strengthening of the economic interweaving of everything and everyone, those who have nothing to do with them begin to suffer from shocks.

In a word, Western economic thought, although it goes ahead of the global financial and economic locomotive, is completely powerless in the face of the consequences of its wave and cyclical components.

I'll comment on the title. It is not taken from the ceiling. “This time everything will be different” (in English “This time is different”) - this is a common phrase from the lexicon of optimistic investors who prefer to close their eyes at the peak of the market to the fact that in similar market situations in the past, things end in collapse. The phrase is so hackneyed that it has already become a parody. It is in this vein that Reinhart and Rogoff use it. After all, we are talking about "eight centuries of financial recklessness."

The title doesn't lie. The authors have really collected the most extensive statistics on various forms of financial crises: defaults on domestic and foreign government debts, banking crises, inflationary episodes, the modern mortgage crisis. Only crises in the stock markets were excluded, and this is wonderful: otherwise the book would not have been published for several more years, and when it did, we would not be able to raise it. All data are collected over the longest possible time intervals and over the widest possible geographical coverage, including underdeveloped African countries. It turned out to be a thick tomin with a bunch of applications. And that is what is priceless. Don't expect deep theorizing from this book. The emphasis is on facts rather than complex theoretical models of crises.

I divide educational books into primary and secondary. Primary - these are books that carry new knowledge in the sense of facts or ideas. Secondaries are good compilations of already known material. (This isn't a good-bad carve-out, there are ingenious secondary books.) Primary books are far fewer in number and much more difficult to create. Reinhart-Rogoff's book is undoubtedly primary, which is a rarity! The Russian edition says: "This material is unique." We are used to not believing the advertising sings of publishers, but this time everything is pure truth.

The statistics presented in the book in a systematic way, there is nowhere else to take. So, for example, the authors of the world history counted dozens of defaults on domestic debts. I remember that after the default on GKOs in Russia in 1998, this topic was actively discussed in our country. After all, if the debt is denominated in the currency of the issuing country, then formally it is easy to pay off - money can be printed. They didn't. I then worked for a well-known investment company, our analysts managed to unearth only one similar episode - in Turkey at the end of the 19th century, and they even published an analytical report stating that Russia had committed such an act that only the Turks had thought of before. As Reinhart and Rogoff show, many others have thought of it.

The book pours water on the mill of my beloved Taleb and his idea that black swans - negative events - happen much more often than we used to think, including in the financial markets. In this sense, it is ideologically correct. And very useful for investors to realize their risks: since black swans arrive more often than we expect them, the risks of investing, respectively, are higher than it seems at first glance.

Also, this book is not entertaining. The authors have done nothing to please any taste and make their work popular. This Time Things Will Be Different is not one of those books that are swallowed in one breath, but of those that study a chapter a day with a pencil in hand. The hopes of those readers who count on an easy walk through the history of crises will not come true!

It seems to me that the disadvantage of the work is that the materials of the book, originally published in the form of serious scientific articles, are very little adapted to the book format. In my opinion, the transformation of articles into a book still requires a deeper processing of the material. Perhaps the authors were pressed for time. Judging by the release dates of the articles, the work was not started in connection with the current crisis. But then the crisis itself turned up, and it was a sin not to take advantage of the situation and not publish a book "in the subject."

The most famous landmark of the city of Pisa is its Tower. It is known primarily for the fact that it does not stand strictly vertically, but at an angle from the main axis. After all, if it were not for this flaw, then thousands of tourists would hardly come every year to look at this “falling” attraction that has become world famous.

History of the Leaning Tower of Pisa

The beginning of laying the foundation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa according to the project of the Italian Bonanno Pisano is dated 1173. The work was carried out in two stages, the interval between which was almost 200 years. This miracle of architectural art was completed in 1350-1360.

So why is the Leaning Tower of Pisa tilted?

It's all about clay soil, due to its soft properties, it is prone to subsidence of the foundation. Also, the cause of the tilt of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy is groundwater, which flowed close enough to the surface in the place where construction was carried out. When this fact became clear, a year had passed after the laying of the foundation, and the first floor had already been built, the height of which was 11 meters. Master Bonanno found a deviation from the vertical of four centimeters. The architects faced an overwhelming task, and construction was suspended.

Only by 1233 three more floors appeared near the tower. The construction of the structure was carried out very slowly, no one knew how the structure would behave with such a roll. In 1272, the city authorities were able to find an architect who continued the work begun. This man's name was Giovanni di Simone. At the time when the new master started work, the slope of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was already half a meter. Due to the risk of collapse, having built only one colonnaded floor, Giovanni refused to continue construction. And again, the unfinished project was frozen.

In 1319, when the tilt of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was already 92 centimeters from the vertical axis, another architect, Tomaso di Andrea, was again found to take on this difficult project. He built the next floor, while deflecting the building in the opposite direction from the roll by 11 centimeters. After that, another eighth floor was built, on which a bronze bell was placed. But the slope of the bell tower did not go away, so it was decided to cancel the construction of the roof and 4 previously planned floors.

Leaning Tower of Pisa - description.

The original project of the bell tower of the Pisa Cathedral included 10 floors with panoramic balconies and a high ground floor. The belfry itself was supposed to be a separate 12th floor with a roof. The estimated height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was about 98 meters. At that time, it was supposed to be the tallest building in the city of Pisa.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is built in the shape of a cylinder, hollow inside. Outside, it is surrounded by huge arches with tall columns. The walls of the bell tower are lined with gray and white limestone. The thickness of the lower walls is about 5 meters, the upper about 3 meters. The area of ​​the foundation under the tower is 285 m², and the pressure on the ground of the entire structure is 497 kPa. The height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is 55 meters, which is half the original idea.

Leaning Tower of Pisa inside.

Inside the tower is a spiral staircase with 294 steps. There are seven bells in the belfry, each of them is tuned to the sound of musical notes.

The very first one was cast in the middle of the 13th century. His note is G-flat, and his name is Pasquereccia. The second Terza (C-sharp) appeared in 1473. A small Vespruccio with the note mi was smelted in 1501. Crocifisso (Crocifisso) with a note in C sharp was made by the master Vincenzo Posenti (Vincenzo Posenti), and in 1818 it was melted down by Gualandi da Prato.

Dal Pozzo - note G was made in 1606. During the bombing of the Second World War, it was destroyed. After the war, it was restored and sent to the museum. And in its place in 2004, an exact copy appeared. Assunta, with the note si, is the largest of the seven bells, thanks to Giovanni Pietro Orlandi. The last addition to the belfry was San Ranieri (D-sharp note). Moreover, it was repeatedly melted down. The last time it was in 1735. Since the cathedral, to which the Pisa Bell Tower belongs, is active, before each Mass, as well as at noon, everyone can hear the chime of these bells. Interestingly, in the Middle Ages, the bells did not ring at the same time, but each at its own specially set liturgical hour.

Leaning Tower of Pisa - interesting facts.

Every year, the world-famous tower leaned 1mm, so local authorities have been constantly restoring the falling Leaning Tower of Pisa in an attempt to stop it from falling. The result of the unique work carried out under and around the bell tower in the 1990s and 2000s was to stop the tilt. The tower was even slightly straightened. At the moment, the slope of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is only 10%. As a result of large-scale research in 2008, scientists recognized that the further fall of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was stopped.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a landmark of Italy and the most popular place in the country not only among city guests, but also among local residents. An inexhaustible flow of tourists who want to see and photograph the falling Leaning Tower of Pisa in the city of Pisa in Italy constantly fills the Miracle Square in front of the Pisa Cathedral.

From here: http://chudesnyemesta.ru/pizanskaya-bashnya

Carmen Reinhart, nee Castellanos, was born October 7, 1955 in Havana, Cuba (Havana, Cuba), and arrived in the United States on January 6, 1966, along with her mother, father and three suitcases. The first years after the move, they lived in Pasadena, California (Pasadena, California), until they settled in South Florida (South Florida), where Carmen grew up.

When the family moved to Miami (Miami), Reinhart entered Miami-Dade College, from which she transferred to Florida International University, where she received a bachelor's degree in economics (cum laude) in 1975. Enlisting recommendations from her teacher Peter Montiel, Reinhart was admitted to graduate school at Columbia University in 1978.

In 1988, Reinhart returned to Columbia University, where she earned her Ph.D. In the 1990s, she held several positions at the International Monetary Fund. From 2001 to 2003, Reinhart was Associate Director in the IMF's Research Division. She has served on the editorial board of many periodicals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of International Economics, and the International Journal of Central Banking. Reinhart was named one of Bloomberg Markets' 50 Most Influential People in 2011 and 2012.

Carmen has written and published numerous papers on a variety of topics in macroeconomics and international finance. She has covered issues such as international capital flows, capital controls, inflation and commodity prices, banking and sovereign debt crises, currency crashes, and more. Reinhart's work has appeared in academic journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Journal of Economic Perspectives and has been recognized in the financial world, including endorsements from The Economist and Newsweek and The Wall Street newspapers. Journal" and "The Washington Post".

Her book This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, co-authored with Kenneth Rogoff, explores the striking similarity of the recurring ups and downs characteristic of financial history.

In 2013, Reinhart and Rogoff came into the spotlight after scholars discovered that the economists' joint paper, Growth in a Time of Debt, had methodological and computational errors. The main trio of Growth in Debt critics, including Thomas Herndon, wrote in their review that "coding flaws, selective exclusion of available data, and unconventional weighting of summary statistics have led to serious errors that do not accurately represent the relationship between government tax and GDP among 20 advanced economies in the post-war period".

Reinhart is a Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Center for Economic Policy Research, principal contributor to the VoxEU Internet portal, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, Reinhart is a member of the American Economic Association and the Association for the Study of Cuban Economics.

Carmen met her future husband, Vincent Reinhart, when they were both attending Columbia University. The couple has one son.