| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

One Nation under Debt: Hamilton, Jefferson, and the History of What We Owe. By Robert E. Wright. (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2008. x, 419 pp. $27.95, ISBN 978-0-07-154393-4.)

"He touched the dead corpse of the public credit," said Daniel Webster of Alexander Hamilton, "and it sprung to its feet" (p. 154). This line catches the theme of Robert E. Wright's book—that debt is good, in measured amounts, and that Hamilton used debt to create the financial system on which America was built. One Nation under Debt is a history of national debt, as incurred by countries in the middle ages, as it developed in the United States prior to the Revolution, as it was managed by Hamilton to kick off the national economy, and as it was paid off by Andrew Jackson. The book closes by summarizing the expansion of U.S. debt since the Civil War, the current burden it imposes on our children, and the impending threat of debt crisis.

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