Customer Reviews

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

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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This magnificent volume of unpublished and previously published writings by the late Murray N. Rothbard deserves to be on the shelf of every careful scholar of political economy, and of everyone who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.

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!!!

Murray was a free market, gold-backed money economist who makes persuasive arguments for his position. This system would, in a perfect world, be a good means of trade and would probably keep extremes of wealth in check. The logistics of changing to this system seem overwhelming. Nonetheless if one wants to know how the USA's banking system evolved this is a definitive read.

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!

A great look at the economic history of the US with a more intensive focus on the Federal Reserve and the early 20th century. Rothbard also shows how Andrew Jackson destroying the 2nd Bank of the US was one of the best things that happened to this country.

For someone who has wasted a lifetime trying to understand economics, money, credit and banking, this book clarifies a good deal. If you suspect Larry Summers and Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and others of their ilk talk mostly nonsense, are at best not be trusted and at worst conspirators in a grand scam to preserve the power of their corporate masters, Murry Rothbard would not only agree with you completely but could probably explain in a couple of paragraphs exactly what is going on every time any of them opens his mouth. Unfortunately, Murry is no longer with us. We have to do the best we can with the method he championed for fifty odd years: ignore what they say and consider who stands to benefit from what they are doing and proposing, and how. What I cannot understand after reading this book, is how or why Rothbard ever got himself involved with Richard Nixon? But don't let that stop you from reading the book.

Is Rothbard right about the need for a gold standard? There isn't enough gold to support the unrepayable and largely unserviceable public debt balloon our Wall Street masters of the universe and their academic and bureaucratic apologists have been inflating over the past ninety-six years, and doubling over the past twelve months. Only truly heroic inflation can now bail out the State, and it's hard to see how the inflationists can now make the bubble inflate fast enough to prevent a gigantic bust. History suggests that a real collapse may be coming, one in which the bankers will remain standing because their toxic waste has all been absorbed by the friendly taxpayer. Other major players may end up more like GM than GE.

Meanwhile, as I await the bust, this book of Murray's is lively reading and food for thought. You really can't ask more from any book.

This book is the best banking book I have ever read. Tremendous research and insight into the history of banking. This is a must read for economic professors across America. Absolutely first class writing and research.

In this latest release of Murray Rothbard's epic volume detailing the history and economics of the United States; Mises Institute (2005) has again made available his writings that spans the time-frame from Colonial times up to the beginnings of World War II. It is an intriguing documentation of the intermixture of politics and economics that have, and continue to, shaped this Nation's history; and, by extension the state of commerce throughout the World.

It must be noted that this 509-page tome is not suggested for a novice reader that does not have any more than a rudimentary knowledge of economics. For those embarking on a study of economic history, Rothbard's early work, "What Has the Government Done to Our Money" might prove to be a more suitable introductory vehicle. With that disclaimer in mind, those readers with an interest in how politics and economics intertwine this volume is indeed illuminating. And, of course, (as history tells us over and over again) politics, diplomacy, and warfare are almost always, and inevitably, shaped by economics.

With alacrity, Rothbard weaves a tale of intrigue and exposes the often overlooked players that sought to impose their opposing economic and political viewpoints. These include those early Americans who espoused a strong Federal government and favored a Central Banking system as to those who favored "free banking". Also included are the various political opponents who fed the turmoil surrounding bimetallism who, in turn, vigorously debated and fanned the flames of gold versus silver parity rates.

Moving on to an America with Imperialistic notions, the Spanish-American War provided an opportunity to impose American economic principles on the previously Spanish occupied countries that America now found in its orb. The new American Colonies were induced into accepting monetary and currency provisions that reflected their new-found ruler's principles. Not content with merely meddling in the affairs of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, the US tried via coercion to force the Sovereign States of Mexico, several Central American countries, and China to hunker down to the American concepts with regard to money (value) and currency exchanges. If coercion and threats failed to bring about compliance, America was not above sending in the Marines.

Not surprisingly, Rothbard expends a goodly amount of ink in discussing the often turbulent events that led to the formation of the US Federal Reserve Bank. Also discussed are the post World War I gyrations that destroyed the previous world-wide gold standard and the wholesale introduction of fiat currencies. All of which ultimately led to the Great Depression of the 1930's.

As the title suggests, he winds up his volume with a detailed inquisition into the causes and effects that precipitated, and prolonged, that dire episode in history when the world's economies were wrought with economic havoc. [Note: diehard Keynesians might be prompted to knash their teeth; however, if they are not too hidebound they might learn something].

The book is profusely documented with detailed footnote references and anecdotal information.

Word count: 494

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Murray Rothbard has written a great book that expands on the history greatly on his "What has Gov't Done to Our Money" book. Rothbard is very detailed and has great insight on the policies and their effects. Rothbard approaches the history in the framework of the Austrian perspective. It is not light reading for the novice, yet the language is readable and not dry like a textbook. Bottom line, if you are interested in the history of money or you are familiar with Austrian economics you should check out this great history book on money.

Although this is a technically written book, the narrative it produces reads as well as any thriller, proving again that fact is far more interesting than fiction. As many times as I have told my children about "how much more that thing costs than when I was a kid", I can now replace that saying with "how much less my money is worth than when I was a kid." The missing lynchpin in my wide study of American History was here within this book: that moneyed interests has always aligned themselves with government, and the two have conspired to "rob" the common citizen through monetary inflation and devaluation of the currency. You can pick any period of American history, and overlay the currency / credit / monetary factors over our current time, and not be able to tell the difference. More than any book I have read, this explains the current loss of personal liberty in our country.