Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing - and recovering - their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different". This book covers topics ranging from medieval currency debasements to today's subprime catastrophe. "Reinhart and Rogoff's book belongs to the tradition of studies that appear in the middle of a crisis but it manages to keep its spine above water because of its historical depth and systematic rigour."---Sakis Gekas, Dublin Review of Books