One Nation Under Debt

Robert E. Wright

Like its current citizens, the United States was born in debt, a debt so deep that it threatened to destroy the young nation. Thomas Jefferson considered the national debt a monstrous fraud on posterity, while Alexander Hamilton believed debt would help America prosper. Both, as it turns out, were right. This book explores the untold history of America's first national debt, which arose from the immense sums needed to conduct the American Revolution. The author tells in riveting narrative how a subjugated but enlightened people cast off a great tyrant, but their liberty, won with promises as well as with the blood of patriots, came at a high price. He brings to life the key events that shaped the U.S. financial system and explains how the actions of our forefathers laid the groundwork for the debt we still carry today. As an economically tenuous nation by Revolution's end, America's...

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