
Depression, War, and Cold War
Challenging the Myths of Conflict and Prosperity
Robert Higgs(Author)
Independent Institute,U.S. (Publisher)
Published on 7. October 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
316 pages
978-1-59813-421-6 (ISBN)
Description
Offering a powerful interpretation of U.S. political economy from the early-1930s to the end of the Cold War, Higgs refutes many popular myths about the Great Depression and New Deal, the World War II economy, and the postwar national-security state that is still so pervasive today.
In Depression, War, and Cold War, the scholarly sequel to his acclaimed classic Crisis and Leviathan, Robert Higgs sheds pioneering light on some of the most important of these questions: What accounts for the extraordinary duration of the Great Depression? What about “wartime prosperity” and whether World War II “got the economy out of the depression”? How did the war alter relations between the government and the leaders of big business? How did the postwar military economy alter the business cycle? What is Congress’s role in the military-industrial-congressional complex? This seminal book answers these and other crucial questions by presenting new insights, evidence, and statistical analyses.
Depression, War, and Cold War offers a powerful, solidly grounded interpretation of U.S. political economy from the early-1930s to the end of the Cold War, and refutes many popular ideas about the Great Depression and New Deal, the World War II economy, and the postwar national-security state still so pervasive today.
In Depression, War, and Cold War, the scholarly sequel to his acclaimed classic Crisis and Leviathan, Robert Higgs sheds pioneering light on some of the most important of these questions: What accounts for the extraordinary duration of the Great Depression? What about “wartime prosperity” and whether World War II “got the economy out of the depression”? How did the war alter relations between the government and the leaders of big business? How did the postwar military economy alter the business cycle? What is Congress’s role in the military-industrial-congressional complex? This seminal book answers these and other crucial questions by presenting new insights, evidence, and statistical analyses.
Depression, War, and Cold War offers a powerful, solidly grounded interpretation of U.S. political economy from the early-1930s to the end of the Cold War, and refutes many popular ideas about the Great Depression and New Deal, the World War II economy, and the postwar national-security state still so pervasive today.
More details
Series
Edition
Reissue
Language
English
Place of publication
Oakland
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 227 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
413 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-59813-421-6 (9781598134216)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition

Book
05/2009
Independent Institute
€41.27
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Robert Higgs is Retired Senior Fellow in Political Economy, Founding Editor and former Editor at Large of the Independent Institute’s quarterly journal The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, the University of Economics, Prague, and George Mason University. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation. His many books include Crisis and Leviathan; Depression, War, and Cold War; After Leviathan; Delusions of Power; Neither Liberty Nor Safety; Resurgence of the Warfare State; Taking a Stand; and multiple edited collections.