• "Well written, well researched, and the thesis put forth is well argued.... Woods has opened up an area of historical analysis that should invite further study."
    -Journal of American History

  • "During these times that challenge our freedoms there is no one more qualified to make U.S. history relevant to the fight against big government than Thomas Woods."
    -Barry Goldwater Jr.
    Former Member of Congress

  • "I strongly recommend Woods's work."
    -The Honorable Ron Paul,
    U.S. House of Representatives

  • "Written with great clarity and fluency, making the complex philosophical and theological concepts approachable."
    -Journal of American Studies

  • "A must-read."
    -Barron's

  • "An excellent reading source for anyone interested in financial markets, and much more so for anyone interested in learning about capitalism without all the misinterpretations being thrown about in the financial media."
    -Asia Times

  • "Provocative, well-written, and deserves to be read."
    -Catholic Historical Review

  • "An engaging and important contribution to scholarship on the history of American Catholicism."
    -Journal of the Historical Society

  • "Woods and [co-author Kevin] Gutzman appeal to both left and right in this constitutionalist jeremiad…. The authors' exegeses of the Constitution and court decisions, heavy on original intent arguments, are lucid and telling."
    -Publishers Weekly

  • "A marvelous read. Every chapter taught me something new and unexpected."
    -Tom Bethell, senior editor,
    The American Spectator

  • "The hottest book today is Meltdown, by my friend Tom Woods."
    -Judge Andrew Napolitano, senior judicial analyst,
    FOX News Channel

  • "Should be required reading."
    -Economic Affairs (London)

  • "Woods, one of the best classical liberal [libertarian] scholars of his generation, has once more placed us in his debt with this lucid and tightly argued book."
    -David Gordon, The Mises Review

  • "Tom Woods is one of my dearest allies in the struggle against wrong-headed and dangerous economic policy."
    -Peter Schiff

CBS News Reviews Meltdown

Declan McCullagh gives Meltdown an excellent review at (of all places) CBSNews.com.

Unlearn the Propaganda!

  • Rich Phinney

    The link inside of this story to Krugman’s ’98 article on Austrian cycle theory is worth the click. Thank you Tom, for all your good works! It was a joy to meet you in Colorado Springs and my daughter brought many friends to the Boulder campus appearance. You are a gentleman indeed. Godspeed you.

  • T

    Friedman’s comments that the Austrian Theory has caused a great deal of harm are completely absurd. How could a theory that is not being applied cause harm? Keynesian economics was applied during the depression and is being applied now. How much good is it doing? Anyone taking Friedman (or Krugman for that matter) seriously needs to have their head examined.

    Read the book. It makes a great deal of sense. Some parts will require more in depth study to understand clearly, but an excellent primer to the causes and cure of our current economic woes. Particularly enjoyed the chapter on money. I hope it gets wide circulation. Thanks for the work. Now if we can only get enough people behind it to vote in Representatives like Ron Paul who are ready and willing to apply it in real life, there would be a reversal of our current trend towards financial collapse. Just in case, you may want to learn how to bake your own beans and bread, cut back on the meat and acquire a weapon with ample ammunition. Times may get a little tough thanks to the boy genius in office now with CFR advisors like Geithner and Summers.

  • Andrew Fischer

    Milton Friedman sounds like an dolt when he says: “If you go back to the 1930s, which is a key point, here you had the Austrians sitting in London, Hayek and Lionel Robbins, and saying you just have to let the bottom drop out of the world. You’ve just got to let it cure itself. You can’t do anything about it. You will only make it worse. You have Rothbard saying it was a great mistake not to let the whole banking system collapse. I think by encouraging that kind of do-nothing policy both in Britain and in the United States, they did harm.”

    Does Mr. Doofus Twinkie actually believe any sort of do-nothing plicy was enacted? Or that the Austrians’ mere words caused harm (by somehow lessening the government interventions)?

  • http://www.vortexpa.com/ Florida Adjuster

    I think Greenspan is getting senile, today he said that you can stop asset bubbles by increasing capital requirements. That just increases the cost of credit. The next time you have a real estate bubble, you’ll have the same problem, assuming that banks are still in the business of loaning against real estate. If you want to stop this problem, then eliminate the federal subsidies for real estate development and investment, then require people in that industry to put their own money at risk instead of someone elses. If Greenspan really wants to change the banking system, though, then simply ban 95% and 90% LTV loans. Require a bigger equity cushion. BTW, the “too big to fail” argument is a fallacious one. During the Great Depression, Canada had no bank failures. The reason was that their banks were very large. The banks closed branches, etc., but none of them failed. By contrast, the US was dominated by thousands of very small banks, and we had more than 10,000 of them fail. So there is nothing inherently unsafe about a banking system dominated by large banks. The real problem with large banks is that during good times, they don’t provide enough competition for each other.