An interview with acclaimed author Andrew Ross Sorkin on his Masterpiece 1929

His most recent masterpiece, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History, became an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. It was heavily praised as a “Best Book of 2025” by outlets like Time, The Economist, and The Financial Times.

Published by Viking Press on October 14, 2025, the book serves as a historical prequel to his highly acclaimed 2009 work, Too Big to Fail. The book chronicles the events surrounding the infamous Wall Street stock market crash of 1929. Sorkin uses newly uncovered diaries, memos, and historical records to reconstruct the crisis hour-by-hour through the eyes of key historical figures. Instead of focusing strictly on economics, the narrative highlights the psychology, overconfidence, human folly, and political dysfunction that drove the market into a freefall. A central theme of the book is the striking parallel between the unbridled optimism of the late 1920s and contemporary financial markets, drawing explicit lessons regarding modern market bubbles and regulatory failures.

Andrew Ross Sorkin has an uncanny and gifted ability to take you through and relive the greatest crash in stock Market History as seen through the eyes of the key players who lived through it. The 1929 stock market crash triggered the Great Depression. It wiped out billions of dollars in wealth, caused a 25% national unemployment rate by 1933, and forced nearly 10,000 U.S. banks to close. These devastating events shattered public trust in financial markets and prompted sweeping, lasting federal regulatory reforms.

The crash initiated a severe worldwide depression as foreign trade plummeted. Protectionist measures like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act further restricted international commerce, shrinking global trade by 66% between 1929 and 1934. Families lost their life savings, and homelessness surged, leading to the creation of improvised shantytowns known as “Hoovervilles”. The economic paralysis led American voters to turn to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal.”

This era ushered in an unprecedented expansion of federal government intervention, public works programs, and the establishment of a social safety net. The crisis forced the government to reshape how Wall Street operated. Congress passed major laws to stabilize the markets, such as the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, to separate commercial and investment banking, and created the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to oversee trading and prevent future abuses.

I asked Andrew, who I admire and hold to the highest esteem, what he wants the biggest takeaway to be for this masterpiece of a book. Does History repeat itself? Are we living in a cycle and how do we not repeat the lessons of the past? Andrew’s brilliant answer was, “Thank you so much for the incredibly kind words about 1929—it means the world to me that it resonated with you. And I’m honored you’re writing a review for the Times of Israel. The biggest takeaway I hope readers take from the book is this: history doesn’t repeat itself exactly, but it rhymes in ways we ignore at our peril. The crash of 1929 wasn’t inevitable—it was the result of choices made by people who believed the rules didn’t apply to them, who confused a bull market with genius, and who dismissed warnings as pessimism. We’re living through our own moment of reckoning now, and the question isn’t whether we’re in a cycle, but whether we’re humble enough to learn from it. The lesson of 1929 is that we have agency—if we’re willing to look clearly at what’s in front of us and act before it’s too late.”