[This review of Rothbard America’s Great Depression was originally published by the Foundation for Economic Education.]

Originally published September 1977 in Libertarian Review.

We heartily encourage reprints and shares of Mises Wire articles. If you wish to reproduce an article in your blog, magazine, radio show, newspaper column, classroom material, textbook, discussion group, website or any other venue, please do so. The original publication source must be included in an appropriate place.

Translations of Mises Wire articles are happily encouraged, and it is assumed that the original intent of the author is honored. The original source must be included in an appropriate place.

The Mises Wire depends on unaffiliated contributors for a significant proportion of its content. We welcome submissions from everyone, regardless of educational achievements and other credentials, so please send us your essays!

We’re looking for short articles that approach real-world economic issues from the perspective of laissez-faire and Austrian School economics (read: not just theory). We also accept history and sociology pieces that use Austrian or libertarian ideas. Radicalism is welcome, but submissions should aim to reach people beyond the free-market sphere.

War has generally had grave and fateful consequences for the American monetary and financial system.

—Murray N. Rothbard, A History of Money and Banking in the United States

Recently in the United Kingdom, an asylum claimant named Abdul Ezedi threw a corrosive substance over a woman, leaving her with life-changing injuries. Ezedi, who had arrived illegally in the back of a lorry in 2016, had been denied asylum twice. In 2018, he was given only a suspended sentence after being convicted of sexual assault. Finally, in 2020 he was granted asylum to protect him from prosecution after he claimed to have converted to Christianity.