THE JACKSONIAN ECONOMY

A polished and responsible attempt to contravene the standard view that Jackson's 1833 ""destruction"" of the national bank and his subsequent monetary policies were to blame for the inflation, panic and deflation of the period. Arguing that Jackson had no control over the crises' origins, Temin examines the money-supply problem in detailed relation to international capital flows and trade fluctuations. Analyses of the banking system, the nature of the economic boom, and Jackson's moves are followed by general conclusions about the price mechanisms of the antebellum economy. Of wider interest are Temin's revisions of the traditional account of the land boom. Very lucid and well-written, the kind of study which makes one wonder why it wasn't done before, but a decidedly specialized complement to its predecessor in this American history series, Remini's Andrew Jackson and the Bank War.