If George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are the saints in America s civil religion, then the twenty-ninth president, Warren G. Harding, is our sinner. Prior to the Nixon administration, the Harding scandals were the most infamous of the twentieth century. Harding is consistently judged a failure, ranking dead last among his peers.
By examining the public memory of Harding, Phillip G. Payne offers the first significant reinterpretation of his presidency in a generation. Rather than repeating the old stories, Payne examines the contexts and...

Speculation--an economic reality for centuries--is a hallmark of the modern U.S. economy. But how does speculation work? Is it really caused, as some insist, by popular delusions and the madness of crowds, or do failed regulations play a greater part? And why is it that investors never seem to learn the lessons of past speculative bubbles? Crash explores these questions by examining the rise and fall of the American economy in the 1920s.

Phillip G. Payne frames the story of the 1929 stock market crash within the booming New Era economy of the 1920s and the bust of the Great...

Speculation--an economic reality for centuries--is a hallmark of the modern U.S. economy. But how does speculation work? Is it really caused, as some insist, by popular delusions and the madness of crowds, or do failed regulations play a greater part? And why is it that investors never seem to learn the lessons of past speculative bubbles? Crash explores these questions by examining the rise and fall of the American economy in the 1920s.

Phillip G. Payne frames the story of the 1929 stock market crash within the booming New Era economy of the 1920s and the bust of the Great...