COLUMN- Of boom, bust but maybe not the Black Death

James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

By James Saft

LONDON (Reuters) - As the crisis has deepened we've had to search farther back in history for precedents, and with deflation at hand much of the debate now centres on how similar the next while will be to the Great Depression.

But what if, rather than the 1930s, we ought to be thinking about the revolutionary crisis of the 18th century, or even further back to the 14th century lending and spending spree that ended with the Black Death?

A reading of The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History, by Brandeis University historian David Hackett Fischer will ring a lot of bells.

Fischer's book, published in 1996, looks at price data back to the time of Babylonian king Hammurabi, and actual series of prices back to Europe in the 13th century.

As the title implies, Fischer finds in the data a succession of waves, often lasting more than 100 years, of first inflation punctuated by violent crises and then very long periods in which prices are basically stable. The most recent "Great Wave" of inflation began in 1896 and may or may not have broken on the shore of the current debacle.

"It looks as if the long inflation has come to an end but we can't be sure," Fischer said in an interview.

He makes no claims for the predictive value of his work, unlike those who study cycles, and cautions that the wild swings that characterise the end of waves make it impossible to judge until well after the fact.