America's First Great Depression: Economic Crisis and Political Disorder after the Panic of 1837 - Hardcover

Roberts, Alasdair

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801450330 ISBN 13: 9780801450334

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2012

Synopsis

For a while, it seemed impossible to lose money on real estate. But then the bubble burst. The financial sector was paralyzed and the economy contracted. State and federal governments struggled to pay their domestic and foreign creditors. Washington was incapable of decisive action. The country seethed with political and social unrest. In America's First Great Depression, Alasdair Roberts describes how the United States dealt with the economic and political crisis that followed the Panic of 1837.

As Roberts shows, the two decades that preceded the Panic had marked a democratic surge in the United States. However, the nation’s commitment to democracy was tested severely during this crisis. Foreign lenders questioned whether American politicians could make the unpopular decisions needed on spending and taxing. State and local officials struggled to put down riots and rebellion. A few wondered whether this was the end of America’s democratic experiment.

Roberts explains how the country’s woes were complicated by its dependence on foreign trade and investment, particularly with Britain. Aware of the contemporary relevance of this story, Roberts examines how the country responded to the political and cultural aftershocks of 1837, transforming its political institutions to strike a new balance between liberty and social order, and uneasily coming to terms with its place in the global economy.

About this title

About the Author

Alasdair Roberts is Jerome L. Rappaport Professor of Law and Public Policy at Suffolk University Law School. He is the author of The Logic of Discipline: Global Capitalism and the New Architecture of Government, The Collapse of Fortress Bush: The Crisis of Authority in American Government, and Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age. He is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and coeditor of the journal Governance.

Review

"Alasdair Roberts tells a wide-ranging story of the depression that began in 1837 with lucidity, emphasizing the role of global financial markets and finding plenty of analogies to the economic problems of today."

(Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848)

"Alasdair Roberts's poignant yet balanced account of the financial, economic, and political crises of the 1830s and 1840s provides us with a distant mirror reflecting our current travails. By not knowing and learning from history, we continue to make the same mistakes our ancestors did. If you want to complete your education, America’s First Great Depression is a good place to begin."

(Richard Sylla, Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets, New York University, co-author of A History of Interest Rates)

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0801450330
• ISBN 13: 9780801450334
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 264