A Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867

Explores the origin and evolution of American public finance and shows how the nation’s rise to great—power status in the nineteenth century rested on its ability to go into debt.

Two and a half centuries after the American Revolution the United States stands as one of the greatest powers on earth and the undoubted leader of the western hemisphere. This stupendous evolution was far from a foregone conclusion at independence. The conquest of the North American continent required violence, su...