A Nation of Deadbeats

Name: A Nation of Deadbeats
Price: 49.99 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780307474322

An Uncommon History of America's Financial Disasters

Scott Reynolds Nelson

$49.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Random House Inc
15 June 2013

History; Financial crises & disasters; Banking

A lively, comprehensive history of financial crashes in American history--and a concise explanation of the little-understood principles that caused them all.

Pundits will argue that the 2008 financial crisis was the first crash in American history driven by consumer debt. But in this spirited, highly engaging account, Scott Reynolds Nelson demonstrates that consumer debt has underpinned almost every major financial panic in the nation's history. From William Duer's attempts to profit off the country's post-Revolutionary War debt to an 1815 plan to sell English coats to Americans on credit, to the debt-fueled railroad expansion that precipitated the 1857 crash- in each case, the chain of banks, brokers, moneylenders, and insurance companies that separated borrowers and lenders made it impossible to distinguish good loans from bad. Bound up in this history are stories of national banks funded by smugglers, fistfights in Congress over the gold standard, America's early dependence on British bankers, and how presidential campaigns were forged in controversies over private debt. An irreverent, wholly accessible, eye-opening book.

By: Scott Reynolds Nelson
Imprint: Random House Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 202mm, Width: 132mm, Spine: 21mm
Weight: 323g
ISBN: 9780307474322
ISBN 10: 0307474321
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 15 June 2013
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Scott Reynolds Nelson is the author of, among other works, Steel Drivin' Man- John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend, which won the National Award for Arts Writing, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Merle Curti Award for best book in American social history, and the Library of Virginia Literary Award for nonfiction. His related book for young adults, Ain't Nothing But a Man (coauthored with Marc Aronson), received the Jane Addams Prize for the best book on social justice, as well as numerous other awards. Nelson is the Leslie and Naomi Legum Professor of History at the College of William and Mary.

Reviews for A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America's Financial Disasters

Praise for Scott Reynolds Nelson's A Nation of Deadbeats A fascinating historical narrative. . . . This revisionist account is eminently readable, in large part because Nelson offers flesh-and-blood examples rather than relying on abstractions. --Kirkus Reviews Lucid. . . . This astute account of economic disruption and disaster through the Great Depression is a useful and engaging perspective on our propensity for repeating our financial mistakes. --Publishers Weekly This might not qualify as 100% pure revisionist history, but it is certainly unconventional history, and hooray for that. . . . History focusing on the losers instead of the winners is especially effective. . . . A Nation of Deadbeats is especially timely, coming as it does during a nationwide and worldwide economic slowdown of at least four years duration and counting. . . . Even if those debtors are sometimes the victims of circumstances beyond their total control, they nonetheless can start ripples in the economy that become tidal waves. --USA Today Exceptionally readable. . . . [Nelson] has painstakingly extracted the sensational details from the mucky ore of the history of financial crises in the U.S., welding them together. . . . Well worth reading--particularly as it is larded with entertaining characters and powerful citations. --New York Journal of Books