Salon, January 14, 2012, Saturday

Salon

January 14, 2012, Saturday

Salon (full article)

The evolution of American debt

In his new book, “Borrow: The American Way of Debt,” Cornell professor Louis Hyman writes, in essence, a biography of American debt. He traces debt through American history: from the late 19th century, when unpaid dues meant public ignominy, to the 1920s, when the auto industry changed the face of borrowing to the mortgage fallouts that led the Great Depression to the invention of the credit card as we now know it, all the way to the current shambles of our national economic livelihood.