The economic crisis that began in 2007 and still lingers has invited comparison with the Great Depression of the 1930s. It has also generated renewed interest in Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's explanation of the latter as mainly the consequence of the Fed's failure as a lender of last...

1. History and purpose of central banking -- 2. Post-World War II macroeconomic policy -- 3. Contemporary Federal Reserve policy -- 4. Globalization, deregulation, mounting global capital flows -- 5. New activism by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Japan -- 6. Financial crises --...