My forthcoming book — forthcoming six months from now, for the election — is already on Amazon: Founding Finance: How Debt, Speculation, Foreclosures, Protests, and Crackdowns Made Us a Nation. The book is from University of Texas Press, part of Mark Crispin Miller’s series “Discovering America.”
And to me it’s a big one: a different mode from my two narrative histories, in this case mixing historical narrative with the kinds of connections between founding history and current politics and economics — and with criticism, in that context, of the historians who precede me, especially Wood, Morgan, Hofstadter — that I’ve explored in this blog (especially regarding the Occupy movement).
For example: Should you want a view of the founding period absolutely the reverse of those presented by Akhil Reed Amar or Grover Norquist, this is the book. I hope it undermines all Tea Party/Norquist claims on the founding period while also questioning — OK, more than questioning — the impact of the academic liberal consensus on public conceptions of founding history over the past fifty years. Even as, I hope, it also tells some lively and startling stories about Paine, Herman Husband, Robert Morris, Thomas Young, Hamilton, et al. Oh, and raises questions about the debate over debt, finance, and protest in the 2012 election. And the real roots of Occupy’s economic protest. That’s it!
Good for you! I look forward to reading it!