In this book Peter Lindert evaluates environmental concerns about soil degradation in two very large countries--China and Indonesia--where anecdotal evidence has suggested serious problems. Lindert does what no scholar before him has done: using new archival data sets, he measures changes in...

This anatomy of financial crises shows that the worldwide debt crisis of the 1980s was not unprecedented and was even forecast by many. Eichengreen and Lindert bring together original studies that assess the historical record to see what lessons can be learned for resolving today's crisis.