Galbraith and The Great Crash 1929

In addition to the many mystery novels that I indulge in, I do read some books with depth. Usually they are not of great interest to others. This week, I finished reading The Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_GalbraithI read it hoping that Galbraith would provide insight into that challenging time and insight into how it happened and what could be done to prevent a second or third event like this. Sadly, after reading the book, all that I found out was that there was a moment when peoples' aspirations financially took a turn for the worst and there did not seem to be any way of turning the tide. It took nearly ten years for the things to return to pre-crash times. Wow, I guess that offers insight into what we might expect at this time. The only positive is that governments seem to have stemmed the tide and the financial disaster is not as great as 1929 but news continues to be bad and maybe we are still in for more challenging times.
Let us hope not.