Overview

"Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Richard Hofstadter, and other have maintained that Andrew Jackson set off a chain reaction when he vetoed the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1832. This interpretation holds that subsequent removal of deposits from the Bank led to unsound credit expansion and inflation, to unprecedented speculation in public land, to the Panic of 1837, and ultimately to the depression. ""Not true,"" write Professor Temin in this thoroughly researched and documented study which shatters the traditional interpretation of the 1830's. ""Jackson's economic policies undoubtedly were not the most enlightened the country has ever seen, but they were by no means disastrous. The inflation and crisis of the 1930's had their origin in events largely beyond Jackson's control and probably would have taken place whether or not he had acted as he did. The economy was not the victim of Jacksonian politics; Jackson's policies were the victims of economic fluctuations."""

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A polished and responsible attempt to contravene the standard view that Jackson's 1833 destruction of the national bank and his subsequent monetary policies were to blame for the inflation, panic and deflation of the period. Arguing that Jackson had no control over the crises' origins, Temin examines the money-supply problem in detailed relation to international capital flows and trade fluctuations. Analyses of the banking system, the nature of the economic boom, and Jackson's moves are followed by general conclusions about the price mechanisms of the antebellum economy. Of wider interest are Temin's revisions of the traditional account of the land boom. Very lucid and well-written, the kind of study which makes one wonder why it wasn't done before, but a decidedly specialized complement to its predecessor in this American history series, Remini's Andrew Jackson and the Bank War. (Kirkus Reviews)

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