A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II (Hardcover)

by Murray N. Rothbard (Author) "In this volume, Murray Rothbard has given us a comprehensive history of money and banking in the United States, from colonial times to World War..." (more)
Key Phrases: interwar years, monetary history, international monetary system, United States, World War, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
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 U.S. 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 U.S. monetary system in terms of a compelling narrative linking human motives and plans that often-times 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 relative integrated narrative, with very little overlap, that sweeps across three hundreds years of U.S. monetary history."

About the Author
Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) distinguished himself as an economist, writing a major treatise on theory, several important economic histories, and a highly praised history of economic thought. But he was also known as the pioneer thinker of libertarianism, the political philosophy that roots freedom in private property ownership and decries the state as inherently contrary to the ethics of a free society. Writing from this perspective, he gained a reputation as the most provocative and influential contributor to the anarchist tradition in our century.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 510 pages
• Publisher: Ludwig Von Mises Inst (August 30, 2002)
• ISBN-10: 0945466331
• ISBN-13: 978-0945466338
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #24,355 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, Behind-the-Scenes Intrigue Revealed!, October 11, 2002

By	anarchteacher (United States) - See all my reviews

Absolutely fabulous! Only the incomparable Rothbard could tell this compelling story in its full richness and detail.

Here the hidden history of money and banking in America unfolds as the internecine, behind-the-scenes warfare between elite financial interests such as the House of Morgan and the Rockefellers, the electoral struggle between the Hamiltonian Federalists and the Jeffersonian Republicans, and the duel-to-the-death Bank War of Nicholas Biddle and Andrew Jackson.

Discover the intriguing facts of how post-Civil War ethnoreligious political conflict between postmillennial pietist Protestant Republicans versus liturgical libertarian Democrats translated into deeply-felt attitudes toward inflation, sound money, and the Gold Standard.

Explore the arcane and clandestine origins of the powerful Federal Reserve, a secretive institution still clouded in mystery and myth.

This magnificent volume of unpublished and previously published writings by the late Murray N. Rothbard deserves to be on the shelf of every careful scholar of political economy, and of everyone who enjoys the discovery of unseasonable and unsettling truths concerning the government elites who attempt to run our lives, debase our money, and squander our children's futures.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Historical Economics Text!!!, August 17, 2006

By	David Lewis (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Murray Rothbard delivers an absolute winner of a text written in the same easily readable style of "What Has Government Done To Our Money & The Case For a 100% Gold Dollar".

He has covered this lengthy timeline from the perspective of who the main players were, what their motives were, and what were the results of their actions. So what this book is NOT is a dry empirical statistical history...phew!!!

What you do get is a terrific understanding of the power struggle running through the timeline between the Houses of Morgan and Rockefeller, with of course the supporting cast of the Harrimans, Kuhn Loeb, Guggenheims and the Mellons, as it centred on their quest for banking domination, via the struggle between the sound money gold standard protaganists and the monetarist inflationary camp! Rothbard weaves in the political situation throughout so that you are able to develop a rounded picture of the political scene based on the power broking of these financial elite too. Outstanding!!

This history of the power struggles and the oscillations between sound money and inflationary monetarism will also take you through the genesis of the new Republic, the origins of the Federal Reserve, the New deal, and the Gold Exchange Standard.

It's fascinating stuff, superbly written, with excellent, detailed bottom-of-page footnoting and an extensive index.

My guess is this will be remembered as the seminal text on this subject in the decades to come!

If you haven't already read "What Has Government Done To Our Money & The Case For a 100% Gold Dollar", then you will want to as this text will also leave you wanting to further explore sound money and the Gold Standard. If you then really want to get to the heart of Rothbard, then I wholeheartedly recommend you read his awesome treatise "Man, Economy and State with Power and Market(Scholars Edition)".

You most definitely will not regret it!!!

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superlative!, April 1, 2007

By	J. Geiger (Waldport, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is among my favorite works by a man who left us a large body of thinking and scholarship. Want to read a history of money & banking in the US? This is it. Here is sound exposition, presentation so clear it is refreshing. Thanks to von Mises, Rothbbard, and Llewellyn Rockwell and all those who continue the work of the Austrian school through the Ludwig von Mises Institute!