America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve

By Roger Lowenstein

Categories: Business & Money, History

Roger Lowenstein tells how the United States, after decades of resisting a central bank, created the Federal Reserve in 1913. He describes the financial panics that exposed the weakness of the banking system and the bankers, senators and officials, such as Paul Warburg, Nelson Aldrich and Carter Glass, who fought over its design. Lowenstein shows how the Fed was a compromise between Jeffersonian distrust of central power and the needs of a modern economy.

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• Shane Parrish: “America’s Bank by Roger Lowenstein — A legacy of the Jeffersonian era of small traditions and small government, Lowenstein tells the story of the creation of the Federal Reserve. Before the reserve, financial panics, bank runs, money shortages, and depressions were common. By the early twentieth century, it had become apparent the banking system was ill equipped to handle the rapid development of ”