We have all heard and read a lot about the crash of 1929. But there was anearlier global economic meltdown, the topic of LIAQUAT AHAMED’s masterful and instructive new work of financial history, 1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World. The book explains the contagion of speculative frenzy and greed that brought the world to its knees and offers intimate portraits of the bankers, politicians, and everyday citizens who were swept up in the boom—and bust. There are even cameos by Mark Twain and Karl Marx. Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lords of Finance and Board Chair of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, will talk about that first Great Depression, what fueled it, and about the dark reactionary politics that followed in its wake.