About this item
James Grant's story of America's last governmentally untreated depression: A bible for conservative economists, this "carefully researched history ... makes difficult economic concepts easy to understand, and it deftly mixes major events with interesting vignettes" (The Wall Street Journal) .In 1920-1921, Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding met a deep economic slump by seeming to ignore it, implementing policies that most twenty-first century economists would call backward. Confronted with plunging prices, wages, and employment, the government balanced the budget and, through the Federal Reserve, raised interest rates. No "stimulus" was administered, and a powerful, job-filled recovery was under way by late 1921. Yet by 1929, the economy spiraled downward as the Hoover administration adopted the policies that Wilson and Harding had declined to put in place.
About the Author
James Grant, financial journalist and historian, is the founder and editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, a twice-monthly journal of the investment markets. His book, The Forgotten Depression, 1921: the Crash that Cured Itself, a history of America's last governmentally unmedicated business-cycle downturn, won the 2015 Hayek Prize of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. His new book, "The Greatest Victorian: The Life and Times of Walter Bagehot," will be published in 2019. Among his other books on finance and financial history are Bernard M. Baruch: The Adventures of a Wall Street Legend (Simon & Schuster, 1983) , Money of the Mind (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992) , Minding Mr. Market (Farrar, Straus, 1993) , The Trouble with Prosperity (Times Books, 1996) , and Mr. Market Miscalculates (Axios Press, 2008) . He is, in addition, the author of a pair of political biographies: John Adams: Party of One, a life of the second president of the United States (Farrar, Straus, 2005) and Mr. Speaker! The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed, the Man Who Broke the Filibuster (Simon & Schuster, 2011) . Mr. Grant's television appearances include "60 Minutes," "The Charlie Rose Show," "CBS Evening News," and a 10-year stint on "Wall Street Week". His journalism has appeared in a variety of periodicals, including the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs. He contributed an essay to the Sixth Edition of Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis (McGraw-Hill, 2009) . Mr. Grant, a former Navy gunner's mate, is a Phi Beta Kappa alumnus of Indiana University. He earned a master's degree in international relations from Columbia University and began his career in journalism in 1972, at the Baltimore Sun. He joined the staff of Barron's in 1975 where he originated the "Current Yield" column. He is a trustee of the New York Historical Society. He and his wife, Patricia Kavanagh M.D., live in Brooklyn. They are the parents of four grown children.
