America's Great Depression

Murray Rothbard is one of the Austrian Economists who Rep. Ron Paul puts on his reading list. This book is very technical and requires a lot of concentration to truly understand the causes of the depression and what prolonged the depression.

This book gives an excellent account of causes of the great depression in the 20s. It uncovers banker's corruption, moral suasion, and secrets of Cal and Harding's presidency. There are unfortunately many similarities between the greenspan/bernanke fed and the fed of the 20's.

This book should be required reading for every person elected to our congress.

Excellent book, but not for someone looking for a biographical history filled with famous personalities or a social history looking back at everyday life during a time of 25% unemployment. This is an economic history. It is recommended for anyone who would like a detailed anaylisis of how federal monetary policy errors can cause false booms by expanding the credit money supply, leading eventually to inevitable recessionary or depressionary corrections. It also explores how Keynesian fiscal policy tends to exacerbate and extend these periods of correction. Interesting, if for no other reason than this cycle of inflationary boom and recession/depression is still with us, and the same disproven tactics are still used as treatments. Anyone interested in the history of banking, finance or economics will probably find this a good read.

A classic work on how the initiation of violence caused the great depression and suffocated any recovery. Unfortunately read rather fast for the complexity of the subject matter and the amount of detailed data. If you are not very familiar with economic terms, it might go a bit fast and I would recommend the paper version.

Economics is normally a boring subject, but Austrian School economics tells the truth about everything. If you want to truly understand our money and what's going on you should listen to this book. I would also recommend Rothbard's other books, like What has Government Done to our Money. Richard R., Toronto

If you're okay with learning every single detail about the depression, this book is for you. There is no stone left unturned regarding the depression in this book.

A pamphlet disguised as a book. Tedious. Propaganda can be entertaining, but not when it repeats itself for the sake of filling pages to create a "book". I want my money back.

Rothbard lays out the relevant Austrian theory then detailed history of Hoover era progressive interventions.

Great book, dull narration. Seemed like he was in a big rush. Book written with wit and sarcasm, read flat.

Rich content and convincing arguments. Completely shatters the myths of Hoover's adherence to free market principles, as the cause of America's Great Depression, and Roosevelt's messianic New Deal, as the solution. Laborious to listen to statistics!

I bought this book thinking it would be a history of the Great Depression, and it turned out to be an extremely detailed analysis of Keynesian economics and how this prolongs "panics" into "depressions." I shifted expectation gears and forced myself to continue listening and found it to be quite informative, and, by chance, it happily followed my reading of Buckley's God And Man At Yale, in which Buckley also criticizes Keynesian economics.