A work that examines the failure of the Clarke Brothers Bank during the Great Depression in the United States: “This is a book with has for its objective – a frank recital of the failure of a bank which was subject to supervision by New York State Banking Authorities” (p. 3). The author (who was a customer of the said bank) contends that “most “bank failures” are in fact “bank robberies””, that is, a robbery committed not with masked men and guns but rather “in a genteel, suave, noiseless and painless way” (p.3). He then poses a series of questions as to how such a (seemingly) stable bank could have collapsed in such an abrupt and catastrophic manner, especially given that it should have been properly monitored by regulatory bodies; his book seeks to answer these questions regarding the failure of the bank.
