[woods]

Have you listened to the lecture on this topic in US History Since 1877?

[woods]

Serious, though arguably Eisenhower’s confrontation with China over Quemoy and Matsu was even a closer call with nuclear war. It’s interesting to look at how historians’ understanding of the situation has evolved as more evidence has come to light: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/annals.htm

[woods]

I talk a little bit about it in Meltdown. It was a case of the banks not having money available for deposit, but holding it instead in the form of income-earning securities. If they were to sell off a large number of these to raise cash for depositors, it would crash the value of the rest of the bank’s portfolio. The mainstream response to this is to say the banks need to be supported in cases like this, when to me the obvious response is that they shouldn’t do it in the first place.

[woods]

I’m not even sure that’s true, but I would welcome Professor Herbener’s input here, if you care to repeat the question in the Austrian Economics forum.

[woods]

Schweikart is generally unreliable, in my experience. Rothbard believed the opposite. Rothbard thought Coolidge was too interventionist. He spends most of his book detailing Hoover’s interventions.

[woods]

Does he mean to suggest that the U.S. was in on it? If so, I haven’t heard that. It’s more widely suspected that the British were less than fastidious about insisting that passenger ships be free of such cargo, on the assumption that any dead Americans on the high seas might become a pretext for American intervention.

[woods]

I hadn’t thought of that analogy.

[woods]

Northern Securities was Harriman’s, not Morgan’s.

[woods]

Hard to give a sweeping answer. Many populists supported imperialism, although William Jennings Bryan, their standard bearer in two national elections, was an outspoken opponent.

[woods]

Right. I would have said just what Kevin did. I have a chapter in my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History called “Yes, Communist Sympathizers Really Existed.”

[woods]

I recommend posting this question in our Austrian Economics forum. Faculty will be more likely to see it there.

[woods]

Ryan, since faculty participation in the General Discussion forum is optional, I think you’d be more likely to get a response if you posted your question in the U.S. History to 1877 forum. Thanks!

[woods]

I don’t know enough about this. I recommend asking Professor Herbener in the Austrian Economics forum.

[woods]

Doesn’t look like anything especially serious: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Warren_G._Harding/Executive_orders

And http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Calvin_Coolidge/Executive_orders

Sorry for the delay in answering! I’ll be more prompt in the future.

[woods]

It’s probably worth having; Johnson is always interesting, and when he’s unreliable you can tell right away. His book Modern Times is an excellent (world) history of the 20th century.

There really isn’t a libertarian history of the U.S., I’m sorry to report. I’ve done a bit with my Politically Incorrect Guide to American History and 33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask. There’s Schweikart and Adams’ A Patriot’s History of the United States, but it’s much worse than the Johnson volume. This is a project for someone to do.

There are decent treatments of particular episodes, time periods, and historical figures, but no overall text.

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