The Forgotten Depression, James Grant
The Forgotten Depression, James Grant
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Forgotten Depression
1921: The Crash That Cured Itself

Author: James Grant, Babette Rothschild

Narrator: Rick Adamson

Unabridged: 9 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/03/2019


Synopsis

James Grant's story of America's last governmentally untreated depression: A bible for conservative economists, this "carefully researched history . . . makes difficult economic concepts easy to understand, and it deftly mixes major events with interesting vignettes"—The Wall Street Journal.

In 1920-1921, Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding met a deep economic slump by seeming to ignore it, implementing policies that most twenty-first century economists would call backward. Confronted with plunging prices, wages, and employment, the government balanced the budget and, through the Federal Reserve, raised interest rates. No "stimulus" was administered, and a powerful, job-filled recovery was under way by late 1921. Yet by 1929, the economy spiraled downward as the Hoover administration adopted the policies that Wilson and Harding had declined to put in place.

About James Grant

James Grant founded Grant's Interest Rate Observer, a financial markets journal, and authored The Forgotten Depression, which won the Hayek Prize. His writing has appeared in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Patrick on December 13, 2021

Liked it, did not love it. Lots of promise, lots of good details, but not quite what I was hoping for. Here is my review: [URL not allowed] But the working link now (2021-12-13) seems to be: [URL not allowed]......more

Goodreads review by Naomi on January 30, 2015

This book can, I guess, count toward my resolution to read some more substantial works this year. But I can't say that I remember enough of my high school Economics class, nor yet the technical information from my Business Reference class, to critique the argument Grant puts forward that The Invisib......more

Goodreads review by Fredrick on May 08, 2019

Following World War I and before the Roaring 20s and the Great Depression of 1929 there was a smaller depression that corrected itself. The Forgotten Depression looks into the cause, effects of, and results of this fairly forgotten period of economic decline. An informative history read.......more

Goodreads review by Walt on April 08, 2019

A very thorough treatment of how the Federal Reserve got started. Includes some interesting history behind Wilson, Harding & Coolidge. The biggest takeaway is that the economy pretty much corrected itself without much government intervention - which supports the belief that the Great Depression woul......more

Goodreads review by Fred on April 25, 2015

In a back cover endorsement, Richard Norton Smith writes, "You don't have to agree with Grant's economics to admire the rigor of his thought, the grace of his prose, or the sweep of his argument …" This is all exactly right. I certainly don't agree with Grant's economics. If this were the only book......more