The Great Financial Crisis that began in 2007-2008 reminds us with devastating force that financial instability and crises are endemic to capitalist economies. This Handbook describes the theoretical, institutional, and historical factors that can help us understand the forces that create financial crises. Many leading critics of the capitalist financial system address the causes of the recent great financial crisis and measures to reform it. They emphasize the political economy of financial problems, with much analysis grounded in the theoretical framework of Marx, Keynes, and more recently Hyman Minsky. In this book, the contributors appear to strongly agree that there have been enormous costs from abandoning this framework in favor of the neoliberal ideals of efficient markets, maximization of shareholder wealth, and inherently stable markets. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals.