A History of the U.S. Economy in the 20th Century (1996)
A History of the U.S. Economy in the 20th Century(1996) The Teaching Company’s Timothy Taylor, in 10 lectures, succinctly explains American economic gyrations during the 20th century. Indispensable for any American history teacher who seeks to understand the economic cutting edge that is overlooked in most textbooks. Professor Taylor starts with an overview of America in 1900: half the rural homes have no outhouses, relatively few students graduate high school, only 382 PhDs are awarded nationally, and the U. S. and Great Britain top the world rank for per capita GDP.
Taylor then assesses major developments in each of the decades from 1910 through 1990. Two of his more controversial conclusions, at least for me), are: 1) economists, looking at the decade of the 1940s, suggest that 1) WW II did not have a major, sustained impact on the U. S. economy for the decade; and 2) the Marshall Plan in Europe did not have a decisive affect on the swift recovery of the European economy. Regarding the latter assessment, I suggest that this is a case of economic analysis gone awry, given the near starvation and political chaos that existed in 1946-1947. While Taylor does not provide ‘the definitive answer’ to why the Great Depression occurred, he does support Milton Friedman’s monetary analysis that castigates the Fed for its wrong-headed tight-money policies. I had occasion to ask a former president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank whether the death of strong-minded New York Fed president Strong in the late 1920s might have facilitated this tight-money policy. His response: a grim-faced affirmative nod. (Available in video or audio)
