Nasar Cartoon on Economic History

Nasar has a great short video on economic history that is quite good.  Check it out.

Nasar on Keynes and Schumpeter in 1919

Sylvia Nasar has a new book on the history of economic thought called Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius.  It got a strong review in the Economist.  In the run up to the release of the book, she has this article on Bloomberg about the roles of Keynes and Schumpeter in the wake of World War One with the restarting of economics.  It is interesting how she portrays Schumpeter working to create a new economic Austria in the wake of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Keynes trying to get the Big Four to be less crushing on Germany.

Interactive Economic History & Policy

The Big Picture has reposted a great New York Times interactive graphic from 2009 showing a history of the American economy from 1960 to 2009, policy actions during that time and descriptions from economists. Great teaching tool - hopefully they will update it. Check it out:

The Civil War and the Great Monetary Experiment

The blog Macro and Other Musings has a good post on the three monetary systems the United States used during the Civil War (Green bank fiat currency in the North, State backed fiat currency in the South and Gold back currency in California). The comparisons between the systems and effects on the war are interesting. Because, the value of Confederate money depended on the war situation, it value fluctuated during the war. The graph below show this: