A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II
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Narrated by:
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Matthew Mezinskis
About this listen
In what is sure to become the standard account, Rothbard traces inflations, banking panics, and money meltdowns from the colonial period through the mid-20th century to show how government's systematic war on sound money is the hidden force behind nearly all major economic calamities in American history.
Never has the story of money and banking been told with such rhetorical power and theoretical vigor. You will treasure this volume.
From the introduction by Joseph Salerno:
"Rothbard employs the Misesian approach to economic history consistently and dazzlingly throughout the volume to unravel the causes and consequences of events and institutions ranging over the course of US monetary history, from the colonial times through the New Deal era. One of the important benefits of Rothbard's unique approach is that it naturally leads to an account of the development of the US monetary system in terms of a compelling narrative linking human motives and plans that oftentimes are hidden and devious, leading to outcomes that sometimes are tragic. And one will learn much more about monetary history from reading this exciting story than from poring over reams of statistical analysis. Although its five parts were written separately, this volume presents a relatively integrated narrative, with very little overlap, that sweeps across 300 years of US monetary history."
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To save the economy and keep Citi afloat in 2008, the government provided huge infusions of cash through multiple bailouts that frustrated and angered the American public. But, as Wall Street Journal writer James Freeman and financial expert Vern McKinley reveal, the 2008 crisis was just one of many disasters Citi has experienced since its founding more than 200 years ago. In Borrowed Time they reveal Citi’s disturbing history of instability and government support. It’s a story that neither Citi nor Washington wants told.
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Biased
- By CF on 08-09-19
By: James Freeman, and others
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The Great Contraction, 1929-1933
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- Narrated by: A. C. Fellner
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The Great Contraction, 1929-1933 argued that the Federal Reserve could have stemmed the severity of the Depression, but failed to exercise its role of managing the monetary system and ameliorating banking panics. This edition of the original text includes a new preface by Anna Jacobson Schwartz, as well as a new introduction by the economist Peter Bernstein.
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A different explanation for the Great Depression.
- By Robert on 11-13-12
By: Milton Friedman
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Why Save the Bankers?
- And Other Essays on Our Economic and Political Crisis
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- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
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Thomas Piketty's work has proved that unfettered markets lead to increasing inequality. Without meaningful regulation, capitalist economies will concentrate wealth in an ever smaller number of hands. Armed with this knowledge, democratic societies face a defining challenge: fending off a new aristocracy. For years Piketty has wrestled with this problem in his monthly newspaper column, which pierces the surface of current events to reveal the economic forces underneath.
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
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How the Other Half Banks
- Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy
- By: Mehrsa Baradaran
- Narrated by: Priya Ayyar
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
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The United States has two separate banking systems today - one serving the well-to-do and another exploiting everyone else. How the Other Half Banks contributes to the growing conversation on American inequality by highlighting one of its prime causes: unequal credit. Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities - all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s.
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The Borrowers at the Fringe
- By Darwin8u on 09-13-16
By: Mehrsa Baradaran
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The Alchemists
- Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire
- By: Neil Irwin
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
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Neil Irwin’s The Alchemists is a gripping account of the most intense exercise in economic crisis management we’ve ever seen, a poker game in which the stakes have run into the trillions of dollars. The book begins in, of all places, Stockholm, Sweden, in the 17th century, where central banking had its rocky birth, and then progresses through a brisk but dazzling tutorial on how the central banker came to exert such vast influence over our world, from its troubled beginnings to the age of Greenspan, bringing the listener into the present with a marvelous handle on how these figures and institutions became what they are.
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Couldn't Listen to this narrator
- By Donald on 07-23-13
By: Neil Irwin
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The Ascent of Money
- A Financial History of the World
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it's the chains of labor. Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress.
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A mostly successful and interesting history
- By A reader on 02-24-09
By: Niall Ferguson
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Lords of Finance
- The Bankers Who Broke the World
- By: Liaquat Ahamed
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.
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interesting insight into interwar period!
- By Toru on 11-27-09
By: Liaquat Ahamed
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American Default
- The Untold Story of FDR, the Supreme Court, and the Battle over Gold
- By: Sebastian Edwards
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The American economy is strong in large part because nobody believes that America would ever default on its debt. Yet in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt did just that, when in a bid to pull the country out of depression, he depreciated the US dollar in relation to gold, effectively annulling all debt contracts. American Default is the story of this forgotten chapter in America's history.
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Superb
- By Jean on 12-08-18
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The Death of Money
- The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System
- By: James Rickards
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The international monetary system has collapsed three times in the past hundred years, in 1914, 1939, and 1971. Each collapse was followed by a period of tumult: War, civil unrest, or significant damage to the stability of the global economy. Now James Rickards, the acclaimed author of Currency Wars, shows why another collapse is rapidly approaching - and why this time, nothing less than the institution of money itself is at risk.
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A good review of the global financial system
- By Jean on 04-22-14
By: James Rickards
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Excellent!
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Learned more here than 4 yrs of college
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Details... Oh my God, the details
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The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal
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In this timely new P.I . Guide, Murphy reveals the stark truth: free market failure didn't cause the Great Depression and the New Deal didn't cure it. Shattering myths and politically correct lies, he tells why World War II didn't help the economy or get us out of the Great Depression; why it took FDR to make the Depression "Great"; and why Herbert Hoover was more like Obama and less like Bush than the liberal media would have you believe.
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The winner writes history
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What listeners say about A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- J. Boyes
- 02-28-21
A must listen!
If you want to know why things are the way they are with our economy & government then you need to listen to this book. As the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun.
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- Dr. Terence M. Dwyer
- 12-01-21
A bit puzzling at times
One might question why the House of Morgan seemed so divided at times. Or why credit is bot different to money aka legal tender.
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- Nick
- 02-11-23
Counter narrative
To anyone schooled in traditional economic history this represents a pretty bracing counter, narrative and alternative history of monetary policy in the United States. You may not agree with all the conclusions, but it’s useful to one’s thinking to be able to read a radically alternative history of events.
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- Mike
- 06-12-18
Must read. History repeats itself...
this is one of those must read books. Rothbard is brilliant and compiles history into an engaging timeline with important implications to our understanding of money and government.
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- David
- 05-18-23
Great history!
I finished reading Rothbard's five volumes of "Conceived in Liberty", and was a little sad that the series ended where it did, at the adoption of the US Constitution. Fortunately, this series picked up in the early US pretty much where that left off, and told the story of US politics up to WWII, from Rothbard's perspective, of course, defending the losers of history that most historians disparage and dismiss, like the Anti-federalists, the Jackson Democrats, and the mono-metalists (as opposed to bi-metalists, who wanted a official/fixed exchange rate between gold and silver, which is economically fated to be problematic via Gresham's law). Excitement awaits-- to learn more, just read this book!
If you haven't read Rothbard's "The Case Against the Fed," you may find it easier to understand this book if you read that one first. (Reading his "Conceived in Liberty" would also help a little, but not everyone has 75 hours to put into reading like that. The Bible is a 76-hour read, if that puts it into perspective.)
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- Jimmy H.
- 05-02-21
Rothbard brings the receipts
Very detailed look at monetary policy leading up to the Fed's takeover of the money supply, highly recommend.
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- Derrick H.
- 02-05-19
Vocal fry unlistenable
The narrator's vocal fry is distractingly painful.
The content is compelling, but could not finish.
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- William Pilling
- 03-04-22
Nazi Germany was a victim?
Gimme a break. Ch 62 it's actually suggested that Germany was a victim? Completely ignores the non economic factors that led to WW2, and suggests that it was in fact caused by Germany attempting to undermine the US UK balance of economic clout, and western aggression against that. Lost me at that point, and makes me call into question, everything said prior.
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- Philo
- 02-04-16
Great facts (if selective); ideological rigidity
As one of several histories of this topic I have read, I find this indispensable. It is lucid, and has the fortitude to lay out its arguments straightforwardly though many are (bravely enough) contrarian to conventional histories. Well and good. However, and I always find this bizarre in an author of this obvious intellect and discipline, the facts are cherry-picked and the characters one-dimensional in service of the author's ideology. (I repeatedly think of Nassim Taleb's references to the Bed of Procrustes -- hacking off the head and feet of any inconvenient facts to fit the intended conclusions.) This, for me, does not make me flee this book, as I have said it is a very informative work. It simply necessitates reading other histories. Alexander Hamilton's achievements are barely noticed and glossed over. Andrew Jackson was a good guy, period, no exceptions, who knew precisely what he was doing all down the line, and when his opponents opened the money spigots and he slammed the brakes, the ensuing multi-year depression was all his opponents' fault. His characters are often one-dimensional in this way: all good or all bad. Jay Cooke was bad. Period. And, facts are oddly detached from their surroundings, which can be glaring if one is versed in the surrounding history and has thought much about it. If one is a hard-money banking purist, knee-jerk style, perhaps living in a libertarian basement, the arguments may make perfect, almost algebraic sense. To me, reality and its players and patterns and meanings are NEVER that neat. That's why movies are not mistaken for reality, and many books deserve this sort of scrutiny. They are reductive. However, nations have tough choices to make and things to do, little things like a Civil War to finance, and its aftermath. Frankly, that Civil War, funded with help from such evil fellows as Cooke, helped develop the global military power needed in the 20th century that, thank God, I was born and sheltered in. I live in a prosperous country that is on top of the world, relative to others, and is the backbone of a world order, so I have a hard time buying the counter-factual of how wonderful everything would be if we had clung quasi-religiously to hard money zealotry, along this rigid line. Frankly, I think we would be road-kill for some better organized nation's military, had we gone that decentralized route. And guess what: a lot of resources were wasted getting here. Nit-picking this process as if one had a better counter-history to offer is presumptuous. This is the kind of trap many of my most intelligent friends fall into (and sometimes, sadly, leaders of the USA, not to mention the voters following their fairy tales) -- they can get into such elaborate self-deluded architectures of aggrieved fantasy that they lose sight of simple virtues and victories right in front of them, in a messy world where unintended consequences, missteps and waste befall all paths. This to me is merely another form of spoiled "entitlement" I, unsurprisingly, usually hear such self-deluders prating about. Nevertheless, these provisos aside, I urge anyone with an interest in this topic to give this book a good listening. You will be well served. For example, the account of the Suffolk Bank, in effect a private clearing and central bank, and a very effective one, points to creative ways finance may evolve, going forward, in private hands (and perhaps with new networking technologies). And that sort of thing is a big attraction of history reading for me. Lots of things have been tried before, brilliantly, but may need a diligent historian like this to pull them out. I'm very satisfied with this book. Growing my intellect means listening carefully and patiently to authors whose ideas I did not, at the start of the book, hold. That's a main reason to read any book, I reckon: to stretch my mind.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-07-16
should be a part of everyone's collection
Need more truth tellers like Rothbard, who valued the advancement of truth and reason over the advancement of his own status or career.
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