Historians earn their keep, in part, by identifying truly significant turning points and then
accounting for them. This process, of course, ideally requires some analytical distance from
the events and processes at issue. It will be some rime before we can gauge the full
ramifications of the global financial crisis that began in 2007 and that continues to bedevil
governments, businesses, investors, workers, and consumers. For one thing, the duration
ofthe crisis remains an open question, despite the declaration by the National Bureau …