McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom (1988). Lowenstein's endnotes even cite some works making the same point, including Richard Franklin Bensel's Yankee Leviathan (1990) and James M.

But he goes too far when he claims that this Republican 'revolution' has been 'largely overlooked.' Really? Certainly not among historians. Lowenstein is an engaging, readable author, and he has consulted a wide range of primary sources and secondary literature. He aims to demonstrate how the Republicans 'vastly enlarged the government.' He not only describes the war's expansion of state power across many dimensions he celebrates this outcome as 'an agenda for industry and growth, and to foster opportunity, especially for those at the bottom.' The book's subtitle- Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War-is misleadingly incomplete, because Lowenstein covers far more than Union finance. With Ways and Means, Roger Lowenstein, the author of several popular books on finance, has tackled the Civil War.

Lowenstein details the Confederacy’s missteps as it tried to raise money, as well as the federal blockade’s stranglehold on Southern ports and shipping.Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War, by Roger Lowenstein, Penguin Press, 448 pages, $30 Chase and Lincoln’s fractious relationship is on full display here, including Chase’s multiple threats to resign and his pursuit of the presidency before and after Lincoln’s tenure. Other firsts included the federal government taking on massive amounts of debt from bond issues the establishment of a fiat paper currency issued by national banks and the solidifying of Wall Street as the nation’s financial hub.

For instance, during the Civil War, the federal government successfully implemented the first-ever income tax, to pay for the mounting war costs. finances under the tenure of Lincoln and his Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. In this enlightening work of economic history, financial journalist Lowenstein ( America’s Bank) explores the massive transformation of U.S. The country’s finances had been left in shambles by the administration of James Buchanan, who had unsound fiscal and monetary policies and feared that his treasury secretary held Southern sympathies. When Abraham Lincoln assumed the presidency in 1861, federal coffers were practically empty.

Ways and Means by Roger Lowenstein