‘Standard’ approaches to the history of the U.S. economy (e.g., Gary Walton and Hugh Rockoff; Jonathan Hughes and Louis Cain) take a narrative approach, bolstered with the use of neoclassical microeconomic or Keynesian macroeconomic analyses of specific issues (e.g., the economics of slavery; the causes and consequences of economic “panics”). Weaver takes a different path, developing a ‘political economy’ approach based on an understanding of capitalism as a conflict between workers and owners, with an emphasis on manufacturing (and a secondary emphasis on America’s role in the global economy). In doing this, he clearly differentiates his book from other textbooks in the field. . . . Another point of differentiation is that Weaver devotes a third of the book to post–WW II developments, far more than other texts. This is an interesting book, but for most teachers of U.S. economic history it will require a major rethinking of the structure and content of their courses. Summing Up: Recommended. Academic audiences: lower-division undergraduates and up; general readers.

Choice Reviews

A fascinating account of the American economic story.

Simon Johnson, professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, and faculty co-director of the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative

Fred Weaver’s An Economic History of the United States is an unfailingly engaging, succinct, and insightful analysis into the economic forces that have shaped the lives of those who have populated our nation, from its Mercantilist beginnings in the colonial period to the unraveling of the U.S. economy during the Great Recession of the last decade. Weaver digs deep to unearth the mélange of conflicts between labor and capital, among competing capitalists, and between public policy and private interests that underlie the history of a U.S. economy embedded in and constrained by a global economy. At the same time, he breathes life into the day-to-day manifestations of those conflicts in the struggles between South and North, over industrialization and immigration, and in today’s economy bedeviled by persistent stagnation and ever worsening inequality.

John Miller, professor, Wheaton College