USEM 180

Booms, Busts and Crises

  Class Meets Fridays, 9 AM - 11 AM, in Monroe 120.

Professor Edwin T. Burton

Monroe 262 (Tues/Thurs)

or

Virginia National Bank Building (MWF)
2nd Floor (and Monroe Hall)

212 731-2340 (etb6d@virginia.edu)

Office Hours: Tues/Thurs 11-12 AM in Monroe 262

Class Notes:

First Class, August 26, 2011: "Sarah Rennick's Notes"
Second Class, September 2, 2011: "Chris Schade's Notes"
Third Class, September 9, 2011: no class, Professor Burton in Hong Kong
Fourth Class, September 16, 2011: "Taylor Jordan's Notes"
Fifth Class, September 23, 2011: "Matt Gandolfo's Notes"
Sixth Class, September 30, 2011: "Eric Bird's Notes"
Seventh Class, October 7, 2011: "Carl Walrath's Notes"

Reading Assignments:

Students enrolled in this course will all read the following books:

Edwin T Burton, The Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, (in draft form), 2009

This Time is Different by Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, 2010

The Great Crash by John Kenneth Galbraith

Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man, Harper Perennial, 2007 (in paperback)

The following books will only be read by individual students who will discuss one of the following books in class:

Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance, Princeton Press, 2009

Erin Arvelud, Too Good to be True, Penguin Group, 2009

Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street, The Echo Library, (in paperback)

Ben Bernanke, Essays on the Great Depression, Princeton University Press, 2000 (in paperback)

Robert Bruner & Sean Carr, The Panic of 1907, John Wiley and Sons, 2007 (in paperback)

William D. Cohan, House of Cards, Doubleday, 2009

David Faber, And Then The Roof Caved In, John Wiley and Sons, 2009 (in paperback)

Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Great Depression, 1929-1941, The MacMillan Company, 1952 (in paperback)

Charles P. Kindleberger and Robert Aliber, Manias, Panics and Crashes, Fifth Edition (in paperback), John Wiley and Sons, 2005

Paul Krugman, The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008, W. W. Norton, 2008

Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker

Michael Lewis, Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity, W. W. Norton & Co., 2008

Roger Lowenstein, Origins of the Crash, Penguin Press, 2004

Lawrence McDonald, A Collosal Failure of Common Sense, Crown Publishing, 2009

Raymond Moley, After Seven Years, Harper, 1939

Arthur Schlesinger, Crisis of the Old Order, Mariner Books (in paperback)

Arthur Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, Mariner Books (in paperback)

Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man, Harper Perennial, 2007 (in paperback)

Gene Smiley, Rethinking the Great Depression, The American Ways Series, 2002 (in paperback)

John B. Taylor, Getting off Track, Hoover Institution Press, 2009 (in paperback)

Studs Terkel, Hard Times, The New Press, 1986 (in paperback)

Students may be admitted to this course only by directly applying for entrance to Professor Burton. Please send an email with resume to etb6d@virginia.edu to apply for admission.

The course is open only to 1st years, but it is open to all students in the University regardless of major or School.

This course meets once each week for two hours on Friday from 9 AM until 11:00 AM.  If you are the kind of student who likes to sleep late, do not enroll in this course.   Attendance is mandatory.

In this course, students read four books (some are easy) jointly. Then each student selects a book from the second list above and reads that book as well and then reports on that book to the class and writes a critical review of no less than five pages in length of the book, which is due at the end of the semester.

American Economy from 1865-1939

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