US History: Resources by Decade: Home

"Part of a 10--volume cross-disciplinary source spanning the 20th century. Includes full or excerpted primary sources representing the seminal issues, themes, movements and events from 1990-1999. Includes oral histories, songs, speeches, advertisements, TV, play and movie scripts, letters, laws, legal decisions, newspaper articles, cartoons, recipes, and more." Description from Gale in Context: Biography "About this Publication"

Presents the empirical data of business cycles and the theories that economists have developed to explain and prevent them, and considers case studies of recessions and depressions in the United States and internationally. Despite more than two centuries of debate, a definitive explanation of the causes of economic cycles still does not exist. Economists, politicians, and policymakers have argued many well-known theories as to why these peaks and slumps occur, and cyclical recessions and depressions continue in spite of the enormous intellectual reserves working to prevent them. This timely analysis presents a comprehensive overview of global economics, assessing older theories alongside of new ways of thinking to reveal the empirical methods needed to evaluate, forecast, and prevent future crises. Educator and economist Todd Knoop provides explanations of influential macroeconomic theories that have shaped modern economics, such as Keynesian economics, Neoclassical economics, Austrian economics, and New Keynesian economics. In addition, he considers case studies of specific recessions and depressions, beginning with the Great Depression through the East Asian crisis and Great Recession in Japan and culminating with a detailed examination of the European debt crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis. The work concludes with a look at the insights gained from these fiscal events as well as the major questions that still remain unanswered as a result of these crises.

Hard Times presents a comprehensive account of economic depressions in America, from colonial times to the "great recession" that began in 2008. Written in crisp prose for a general audience, the book synthesizes a narrative account--presenting the known facts about how particular depressions started, the effects upon people in different walks of life, the policy debates about what (if anything) to do in order to ameliorate the situation, and how these depressions ended--with analytical commentary on the economic patterns underlying and transcending depressions and the debates among economists and policymakers in regard to their causes. While these economic downturns have created suffering and hardship, Striner also conveys how Americans have always endured and rebounded from hard times.

This inquiry into the rise and fall of the great Wall Street boom of the 1990s, from bestselling author Roger Lowenstein, has all the hallmarks of a financial classic. Roger Lowenstein, recognized as one of the best financial reporters of our time, turns his focus to the 1990s stock market and economic boom and bust in Origins of the Crash. With his singular gift for turning complex financial events into eminently readable stories, Lowenstein lays bare the labyrinthine events of the manic 1990s-including the collapse of Enron, the dot-com bubble, the accounting scandal at Andersen, and much more. Drawing on his sense of history, Lowenstein inquires how a financial system that arose out of the wreckage of the Depression and that was intended to avert the miscues of that era could ultimately repeat the very same scenario of massive speculation and corruption leading to collapse. He discovers the roots of the recent crisis in the financial culture that cropped up in the 1970s and 1980s as America encouraged companies to hand out ever greater packages of stock options to their executives. In an enthralling narrative, Lowenstein ties together all of the characters of the great boom and bust: Alan Greenspan, Jack Grubman, Jack Welch, Abby Cohen, Henry Blodget, and a host of dot-com pioneers. But it is the collective rendering of such figures-the unique portrayal of the culture of the era-that truly distinguishes Origins of the Crashas the book that will frame our appreciation of the period. Just as John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crashwas the canonical text of 1929, Lowenstein's Origins of the Crashis destined to become the definitive account of the 1990s.

The economy of any nation is an intricate web of relationships among the factors determining supply and demand--and everything that affects them, from inflation to taxes to the stock market. The study of business cycles attempts to explain why economies grow and contract, experiencing periods of prosperity and pain. Consistent with the popular conception of economics as the dismal science, economists secretly long for recessions (periods of negative growth) and depressions (severe contractions), not because they enjoy their devastating impact on human welfare, but because these downturns serve as excellent laboratories for observing what happens when markets break down. Despite over two centuries of debate, no one has yet definitively unlocked the secrets of economic downturns and how they might be prevented. In Recessions and Depressions Todd Knoop traces the evolution of business cycle theory, from the classical model, which preceded the Great Depression, through the ground-breaking ideas of John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and their followers. He examines the strengths and limitations of each approach, in terms of explaining the impact of such factors as government policy, money supply, labor productivity, and wages. In the process, he presents an accessible introduction to what makes the economy tick, and offers new insights into understanding such historic events as the Great Depression, as well as more recent ones, such as the Asian meltdown in the 1990s, the financial crises in Latin America, and the U.S. recession of 2001, from which the United States is still recovering. Knoop reminds us that economists' track record in forecasting business cycles leaves much to be desired, and the quest to fully understand what causes economic downturns--and their effects on individuals and families--continues.