In contemporary American political discourse, issues related to the scope, authority, and the cost of the federal government are perennially at the center of discussion. Any historical analysis of this topic points directly to the Great Depression, the "moment" to which most historians and...

Slavery and the Civil War -- Reconstruction -- The Gilded Age and Jim Crow laws -- The Great Migration, Depression and world wars -- Postwar prosperity and the civil rights movement -- A new Gilded Age and mass incarceration -- Racism rises and America declines.

Introduction -- "A bureau for the promotion of honesty" : the birth of systematic credit surveillance -- Coming to terms with credit : the nineteenth-century origins of consumer credit surveillance -- Credit workers unite : professionalization and the rise of a national credit infrastructure --...

"Davies's book examines the financial panics of 1873, considering both the financial speculations born of exuberance that led to these panics and the interpretative speculations born of the crises, and exploring what this in turn reveals about contemporary notions of the world economy and...