We ask (1) why the United States adopted the car more quickly than other countries before 1929, and (2) why in the United States the car changed from a luxury to a mass market good between 1909 and 1919. We argue that the answer is in part the success of the Model T in the United States and its...

"Most measures of the American economy over the past two centuries or so produce a jagged sine wave--"irrationally exuberant" highs leading to painful lows. Bubbles lead to panics, over and over again. Payne has written a short book on the 1920s to demonstrate to undergraduates how this pattern...

Introduction -- "The Heart of Contemporary Capitalism": The Partners and their Bank -- J.P. Morgan & Co. at home and abroad in the 1920s -- The Young Plan, the Bank for International Settlements and the Wall Street Crash, 1929-30 -- "The End of the World"? The 1931 Crises -- "Witchcraft": J.P....