< https://braddelong.substack.com/p/a-draft-syllabus-for-econ-113-american > What I see as the big questions of American economic history: How is America “exceptional”? What about its comparative & historical situation primed it to become “exceptional”? How did the conquest-expansion economy of the 1700s & 1800s work? How did a country that ought to have been a gigantic resource-exporting Australia become a manufacturing powerhouse instead, or as well? & how did it become THE technological leader & pioneer of mass-production too?... 1/
...& how did it become the most effective civilization at expanding its citizen base since the Romans? & how did it become a feminist-friendly economy—or did it? Was the New Deal Order a design or an accident, & was it a success or a failure, & was its 1970s end a mercy or a mistake? Where and how and what Silicon Valley? What happened to equality of opportunity as an ideal? & why could the Neoliberal Order not apply the standard playbook to deal with the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis?... 2/