Book ID: CBB797392415

The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market (2023-02-21)

unapi

Conway, Erik M. (Author)
Oreskes, Naomi (Author)


Bloomsbury


Publication Date: 2023-02-21
Physical Details: 576 pp.
Language: English

In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with “big government” and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor. They detail the ploys that turned hardline economists Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman into household names; recount the libertarian roots of the Little House on the Prairie books; and tune into the General Electric-sponsored TV show that beamed free-market doctrine to millions and launched Ronald Reagan's political career. By the 1970s, this propaganda was succeeding. Free market ideology would define the next half-century across Republican and Democratic administrations, giving us a housing crisis, the opioid scourge, climate destruction, and a baleful response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Only by understanding this history can we imagine a future where markets will serve, not stifle, democracy.

...More
Reviewed By
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB797392415/

Similar Citations

Book Rebecca E. Karl; (2017)
The Magic of Concepts: History and the Economic in Twentieth-Century China (/isis/citation/CBB898413640/)

Book Robert Skidelsky; (2018)
Money and government: The past and future of economics (/isis/citation/CBB841092967/)

Book Raphael Sassower; (2013)
Digital Exposure, Postmodern Postcapitalism (/isis/citation/CBB543863403/)

Article Nathan Sperber; (2019)
The Many Lives of State Capitalism: From Classical Marxism to Free-Market Advocacy (/isis/citation/CBB999666909/)

Book Andreas Birkbak; Irina Papas; (2022)
Democratic Situations (/isis/citation/CBB680992726/)

Article Evelyn Fox Keller; (2017)
Climate science, truth, and democracy (/isis/citation/CBB787498022/)

Book Ann Folino White; (2014)
Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America (/isis/citation/CBB624497168/)

Article Kelly Joslin Holloway; (September 2015)
Normalizing Complaint: Scientists and the Challenge of Commercialization (/isis/citation/CBB582502078/)

Book Robert Kuttner; (2018)
Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? (/isis/citation/CBB098241674/)

Book Avner Offer; Gabriel Söderberg; (2016)
The Nobel Factor: The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy, and the Market Turn (/isis/citation/CBB932673235/)

Book Mario Daniels; John Krige; (2022)
Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America (/isis/citation/CBB238236707/)

Article William H, Jr. Sewell; (2020)
The Cultural History of Capitalism in France (With a Chicago touch) (/isis/citation/CBB282715611/)

Book Brian P. Luskey; (2015)
Capitalism by Gaslight: Illuminating the Economy of Nineteenth-Century America (/isis/citation/CBB807053616/)

Authors & Contributors
Suter, Mischa
Bruns, Florian
Karl, Rebecca E.
Keller, Evelyn Fox
Krige, John G.
Miller, Clark A.
Journals
Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Comparative Studies in Society and History
Foundations of Science
French History
History of the Human Sciences
Science and Society
Publishers
Harvard University
University of Pennsylvania
College of William and Mary
Duke University Press
Indiana University Press
Palgrave Macmillan
Concepts
Capitalism
Science and politics
Economics
Democracy
Social sciences
Economic policy
People
Cassirer, Ernst
Time Periods
21st century
20th century
19th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
Enlightenment
Places
United States
Switzerland
Canada
China
Europe
Germany
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment