Ages of American Capitalism

A leading economic historian traces the evolution of American capitalism from the colonial era through the 2008 crash--and argues that we''ve come to yet another turning point. Inspired by the market crash and great recession of 2008, Jonathan Levy began teaching a course to help his students understand everything that had happened in the economy to get to that point. Working from the beginning of U.S. history to the present, he found that capitalism in America has evolved through four distinct ages, separated by dramatic cataclysms that each forced a major turn in how the economy operated. In an ambitious, single-volume history of the United States, he reveals how the country''s economic evolution is inseparable from the nature of American life. The Age of Commerce spans the colonial era, the founding of the United States, and up to the outbreak of t he Civil War, a period of history where economic growth and output was the result of the spread of trade,