Hamilton's Blessing ─ The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt

The United States was born in debt. For many in the late eighteenth century, a national debt was unthinkable; for Alexander Hamilton, it was a glowing opportunity—“a national blessing…a powerful cement to our union and a spur to industry”—and he made it forever a part of our government’s fiscal policy. Today the debt has grown so massive as to be both incomprehensible and threatening. But that very mass obscures its vibrant history, a legacy intertwined with and central to the story of our country.

Since the 1997 publication of Hamilton’s Blessing, the national debt has more than doubled, and it will do so again in the coming years. John Steele Gordon has substantially revised his original manuscript to take these dramatic events into account, once again making his book essential reading for anyone who values the perspective of history. For the story of the debt traces the history of our government and of economic thinking over almost 220 years. Offering pocket histories of our banking and tax systems, Gordon unveils a range of human dramas: Stephen Girard, who personally arranged the financing to sustain the War of 1812; Benjamin Strong, the governor of the New York Federal Reserve, whose untimely death in 1928 undoubtedly heightened the Great Depression; John Maynard Keynes, whose controversial theories have caused endless debate, however much they are now back in vogue.

At a time when we fear the long-term impact of our massive debt, Hamilton’s Blessing provides muchneeded insight and perspective.