Monetary Policy and the Onset of the Great Depression challenges Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's now consensus view that the high tide of the Federal Reserve System in the 1920s was due to the leadership skills of Benjamin Strong, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

A narrative history by a Fed insider of how monetary policy is shaped in the US, with special emphasis on the performances of former Chairman Ben Bernanke and current Chairwoman Janet Yellen in facing the prelude, outbreak, and aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis

This unique book deals with the most serious macroeconomic failure experienced in the US in the post-war period and the great inflation of the late 1960s and 1970s. It is the first detailed analysis, using Federal Reserve documents, of the thinking behind the inflationary monetary policy during...

1. Introduction -- 2. Early central banks -- 3. Central banking in the United States, 1847-1913 -- 4. The Federal Reserve sysyem, 1913-51 -- 5. The Federal Reserve, 1951-99 -- 6. The Great Recession -- 7. Bank regulation -- 8. Conclusion : the necessity and possibility of replacing the Fed.