Debtor Nation

Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink is a book written by Harvard economic historian Louis Hyman and published by Princeton University Press in 2011.

Argument

The book argues that in order to understand the rise of our contemporary debt-driven economy, we must look back at the history of American markets and American policy in the 20th century.
The book combines the methods of economic, business, political, and social history.

Chapters

The book is arranged into nine chapters, spanning the twentieth century.

An Introduction to the History of Debt
Chapter Two: Debt and Recovery: New Deal Housing Policy and the Making of National Mortgage Markets
Chapter Three: How Commercial Bankers Discovered Consumer Credit: The Federal Housing Administration and Personal Loan Departments, 1934–1938
Chapter Four: War and Credit: Government Regulation and Changing Credit Practices
Chapter Five: Postwar Consumer Credit: Borrowing for Prosperity
Chapter Six: Legitimating the Credit Infrastructure: Race, Gender, and Credit Access
Chapter Seven: Securing Debt in an Insecure World: Credit Cards and Capital Markets
Epilogue: Debt as Choice, Debt as Structure

In popular culture

Hyman's arguments in Debtor Nation inform his explanations of the financial crisis in David Sington's documentary The Flaw which premiered at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival in November 2010.