Do events of the 1930s carry a message for the 1990s? Lessons from the Great
Depression provides an integrated view of the depression, covering the experience in Britain,
France, Germany, and the United States. It describes the causes of the depression, why it was so
widespread and prolonged, and what brought about eventual recovery.Peter Temin also finds parallels
in recent history, in the relentless deflationary course followed by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board
and the British government in the early 1980s, and in the dogged adherence by the Reagan
administration to policies generated by a discredited economic theory - supply-side economics.Peter
Temin is Professor of Economics at MIT.