A Financial History of the United States: 1492 - 2020

Originally published between 2002 and 2011, the first 6 meticulously researched and extensive volumes of this set cover a vast period of US financial and economic history, from the ‘discovery’ of America, through Civil War, Independence, two World Wars, the Great Depression, and on through the turbulent 20th and early 21st Centuries. An entirely new volume brings the series up to date to the Pandemic of 2020.

Carefully documented and lucidly written by Jerry W. Markham, these volumes give an unparalleled insight into financial scandals; corporate governance issues; the development of US securities, derivative and mortgage markets; housing boom and bust and stock market panics.

The final (entirely new) 7th volume is divided into three chronological sections: the first section describes the recovery of financial markets after the Great Recession. It begins with an overview of the state of the economy at the start of the new decade, including some of the political storms affecting the economy and financial markets. The second section sets forth regulatory responses to the Financial Crisis of 2008, including the massive fines imposed on large banks by a swarm of regulators. The third section describes the rules adopted under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 that broadly affected financial markets. It also recounts the Trump trade wars and ends with an account of the financial and economic turmoil that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.