Gordon's explication of the genesis of the US banking system is exceptionally interesting and highly readable for most people with modest financial backgrounds. He helps provide some facts that enable one to understand what is occuring in todays financial economy. I recommend this book for general reading to all those who doubt our ability to manage our financial affairs; clearly, we have been in many "ditches" before.

This book sat on my shelf for a couple years. It looked thick and everytime I read the back cover I put it back down. An economic history of the US? Ugh. Well, I finally read it and I'm sorry I waited. This is a very entertaining and informative book. After every chapter I would share with my wife some new piece of information I had learned or share some story he had written about some of the characters that present themselves. Honey did you know...? This turned out to in fact be a quick and highly enjoyable read. I highly recommend this book to everyone who thinks they might want to have a better understanding of how the US economy developed from founding to present day - and doesn't have a degree in economics or math. I find myself referencing this book constantly as I discuss the current economic situation of our country with friends and family. Given the current situation with the automakers in Detroit his chapter on the development of GM and Ford and the auto industry should be required reading. Read about Wall Street shenanigans in the 19th century and you won't be nearly as shocked at the current situation. And all this with not one eye-glazing chart, graph or formula. Well done.

It is amazing to me that someone could read this book - as the publisher's weekly reviewer and some of these Amazon reviewers have - and conclude this is an "unfair", biased account of American economic history because it completely ignores the disparity of wealth our capitalist system created.

Really?

Then you have missed the point of this book...missed the forest of the trees, as it were.

This is an epic history of an epic nation. Think about your comments in the epic context of this book. Let me help: Answer these questions about the percentage of Americans in 1780/1880/1980 that could:

- Travel to family or friends 100s, or even 1000s of miles away for a meal? For an emergency?
- Communicate with loved ones, not in the same room?
- Hear music that wasn't being played in the same room?
- Have an iced beverage in the summer time?
- Enjoy a warm bath in the winter?
- See 50/70/90/99% of their children grow to adult-hood?
- Live to see grandchildren? Great grandchildren?
- Have the ability to show their grand children/great grandchildren/etc pictures of themselves?
- Spend less than 80/60/40/20/5% of their waking moments feeding themselves?
- Have fresh, out of season, produce?
- Have access to virtually any book ever published in the last 100 years? Content not published?
- Expect to catch typhoid/tuberculosis/small pox/pneumonia/mumps/measles/polio?
- Survive childbirth/a heart-attack/diabetes/a broken femur/
- Survive to 40/60/80/90?
These are the perspectives of this book. It never occurred to me a significant number of people in 1850 didn't even know what ice was. That is, before ships and insulation improved to the point where New England ice could be exported to Central America and India. That is, until refrigeration took over (one can imagine the local politician bemoaning the loss of jobs in the ice-farming industry). This book is page after page of these obvious-in-hindsight, incredibly entertaining tidbits.

But, back to you narrow minded reviewers: the above doesn't even address the core economic fallacy inherent in your phony wealth statistics -unlike the socialist systems you no-doubt favor, ours isn't a caste system - the wealthiest 1% and poorest 10% are not the same people year after year. One of the greatest explanatory variables of % wealth disparity in this country is time spent in this country, governed by both age and immigration status. A pre-med college student is poor, yet 20 years later as a surgeon, is rich; a craftsman at 20 who puts away 10% of his income over a 40 year career starts poor, ends "rich"; a Mexican immigrant who arrives with nothing sees his children go to college.

We are living in the greatest economic environment of opportunity and prosperity in the history of the world and, yet, a significant number of people are finding ways to be miserable, ingrates, and ruin it for the next generation. Read this book and gain some perspective, for your sake and (unfortunately, given our political climate, for my sake and my children's sake as well).

I first heard Mr. Gordon on 20/20 talking about the 1987 mini-crash of the stock market, and when he said, "The Fed did the right thing then, it injected huge amounts of liquidity into the market." If people believe creating money out of thin air and giving it to the politically connected helps the economy, they really need to go back to Econ 101. Oh wait, Econ 101 these days says exactly that in almost every government run school in America. For a much more detailed and insightful look at the History of Banking and the true cause of the booms and busts (hint: The Federal Reserve itself), read Murray Rothbard's "A History of Money and Banking in the United States," or his "The Mystery of Banking." There you will find sound logic, as opposed to this trash.

this book is very nationalistic and pro-america in the phrasing. which made me want to stop reading instantly and i couldn't take some things seriously. there were some claims about america that were made in the book that were just included and unexplained while things that is common knowledge to most people were given detailed summaries.