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AN EMPIRE OF WEALTH

John Steele Gordon

Subtitle: The Epic History of American Economic Power, Harper, N.Y., 2004, 460 pgs, index, bibliography, notes, paperback

 
 

Reviewer comment: This book should be read along with Christopher Whalen's Inflated - both describe the financial basis for the expansion of American economic development and power. And also read Felix Martin's Money, a more general analysis of American finance. Also read Charles Calomiris' Fragile by Design - a history of banking.

 
 

Introduction - The Pursuit of Happiness

 
 

Part I - A Vast and Roaring Wilderness

 
 

Chapter 1 - The Land, the People, and the Law

 
 

Chapter 2 - In the Name of God and Profit

 
 

Chapter 3 - The Atlantic Empire

 
 

Part II - A Country That Could make Itself As it Pleased

 
 

Transition: The American Revolution

 
 

Chapter 4 - The Hamiltonian Creation

 
 

Chapter 5 - A Terrible Synergy

 
 

Chapter 6 - Labor Improbus Omnia Vincit

 
 

Chapter 7 - The Jeffersonian Destruction

 
 

Chapter 8 - New Jersey Must Be Free!

 
 

Chapter 9 - Chaining the Lightning of Heaven

 
 

Chapter 10 - Whales, Wood, Ice, and Gold

 
 

Part III - The Emerging Colossus

 
 

Transition- The Civil War

 
 

Chapter 11 - Capitalism Red in Tooth and Claw

 
 

Chapter 12 - Doing Business with Glass Pockets

 
 

Chapter 13 - Was There Ever Such a Business!

 
 

Chapter 14 - A Cross of Gold

 
 

Part IV - The American Century Begins

 
 

Transition: The First World War

 
 

Chapter 15 - Getting Prices Down to the Buying Power

 
 

Chapter 16 - Fear Itself

 
 

Chapter 17 - Converting Retreat into Advance

 
 

Part V - A New Economic Revolution

 
 

Transition: The Second World War

 
 

Chapter 18 - The Great Postwar Boom

 
 

Chapter 19 - The Crisis of the New Deal Order

 
 

Chapter 20 - A New Economy, a New World, a New Year

 

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