Hard Times

May 21, 2018
In this concise overview of economic depressions in the United States, Striner, a professor of history at Washington College, highlights the boom-and-bust nature of economic growth, paying special attention to the role of financial panics in precipitating economic contractions. Striner begins in colonial times and covers the bank wars of the antebellum period and the tide of populist anger embodied by the “Greenbackers,” who advocated increasing the country’s money supply with non-gold-backed currency, before devoting three chapters to the Great Depression and its lessons. The final section sketches an intellectual history of the two major schools in economic thinking—Keynesianism and monetarism—before concluding with reflections on the Great Recession of 2008, which, he writes, “began... in much the same manner” as previous economic disasters, with ill-conceived practices in the financial sector. Striner is a lucid guide to economic history, explaining fractional reserve banking and the workings of financial panics with ease. He keeps innovations in money and banking at the heart of the narrative, lending it analytical heft. But in attempting to strike a balance between a scholarly work and an accessible introduction, however, the book falters, not fully becoming either one. Despite these flaws, this intelligent and scrupulous account imparts a detailed knowledge of U.S. depressions and the political and economic responses they generated.

June 1, 2018
For many Americans, economic depressions are terrifying phenomena ranking just below nuclear war. When unemployment soars and financial systems cease to function efficiently, both social and political stability come under dire threat. As historian Striner (Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery, 2006) relates, these upheavals have plagued American history throughout the centuries. Colonial economies based from the beginning on international trade, Massachusetts' livelihood suffered when the English Civil War broke out. Later financial panics raised issues around the effects of laissez-faire capitalism on national stability. The Great Depression of the 1930s called into question economic ideologies as Roosevelt attempted to restore full employment and sound banking. Striner points out that FDR's policies were full of contradictions, some tending to conservative principles, some to radical government intervention in the Keynesian mode. Striner brings all of this analysis to bear in his exposition of the causes and consequences of the still-lingering Great Recession. Using a light touch in his unbinding of economic theory, Striner makes the abstruse accessible to the layman. Critical bibliographic notes enhance the text.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)