A witty history of crisis in the Square Mile

Crash Bang Wallop: The Inside Story of London’s Big Bang and a Financial Revolution that Changed the World

Margaret Thatcher meets City traders on the floor of the London Stock Exchange in 1979. Picture;Getty

Catastrophes need causality. We even call earthquakes acts of God. There’s something about us that needs to find the whys and the hows of the bad things that happen to us. This is common sense, as we’d like to avoid another catastrophe, if we can.

When it comes to financial catastrophes, it turns out we can’t avoid them, and we can’t quite figure out what causes them. Crash Bang Wallop is the latest ...