https://www.amazon.com/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Specula...
Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Seventh Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017J5HBMS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_r.pw...
Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation https://www.amazon.com/dp/0452281806/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_.a...
A History of Interest Rates, Fourth Edition (Wiley Finance) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471732834/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_-c...
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802144160/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Hg...
https://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/...
https://www.amazon.com/Splendid-Exchange-Trade-Shaped-World/...
https://www.amazon.com/Cash-Nexus-Money-Modern-1700-2000/dp/...
https://www.amazon.com/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Specula...
Academic but readable:
https://www.amazon.com/Manias-Panics-Crashes-History-Financi...
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Financial-Capitalism-Internation...
To be fair, the UK was overspending on railway long before it was cool :-)
From Edward Chancellor's "Devil Take the Hindmost" [1]:
> In January 1845, sixteen new railway schemes were projected. By April, with rail receipts continuing to grow rapidly, over fifty new companies had been registered...
> By June 1845, plans for over eight thousand miles of new railway -- four times the size of the existing railway system and nearly twenty times the length of England -- were under consideration by the Board of Trade. In the following month, new schemes appeared at the rate of over a dozen a week.
> At the end of October [...] over twelve hundred railways were being projected at an estimated cost of over £560 million. The total amount of outstanding railway liabilities was nearly £600 million. This figure exceeded the national income, estimated at around £550 million, of which perhaps £20 million a year could be spent safely on the railways without starving the rest of the economy of capital.
> In Britain, [...] the spirit of laissez-faire dictated that the development of the railways should be left entirely to private enterprise. The uncontrolled expansion of the railway system, in the hands of semi-criminal entrepreneurs, produced a haphazard network. For instance, by the 1850s there were three independent routes from Liverpool to Leeds and three alternative routes from London to Peterborough.
> The results of the mania, however, were not entirely negative. With over 8,000 miles of track in operation by 1855, Britain possessed the highest density of railways in the world, seven times greater than that of France or Germany.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Specula...
Off the top of my head, I would add:
* "The Way to Wealth," by Benjamin Franklin: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0918222885 (also available online for free; it's in the public domain) -- no-nonsense practical advice from a super-successful individual
* Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html (also available organized by topic, in a bound book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1611637589 which some will find much easier to read)
* "The Intelligent Investor," by Benjamin Graham (specifically the chapters titled "The Investor and Market Fluctuations" and "Margin of Safety"): https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060555661
* "Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion," by Robert Cialdini: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0688128165
Also:
* "Devil Take the Hindmost," by Edward Chancellor: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0452281806
* "A Short History of Financial Euphoria," by John Kenneth Galbraith: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140238565
* "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," by Charles Mackay: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1586635581
http://www.amazon.com/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Speculat...
