Burton W. Folsom

In his book The Myth of the Robber Barons, Folsom distinguishes between political entrepreneurs who ran inefficient businesses supported by government favors, and market entrepreneurs who succeeded by providing better and lower-cost products or services, usually while facing vigorous competition.

A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America

The Myth of the Robber Barons

Lawrence W. Reed

Economics as it is taught today is replete with fallacies. So is history. Combine the two into Economic History and you frequently get a witch's brew of mumbo jumbo. The Industrial Revolution was a setback for workers. Free markets caused monopoly and exploitation. Government intervention was required for economic growth and for economic recovery. These are but a few of the many misconceptions that constantly need revisiting, and are addressed within this volume. The authors recognize that both economics and history must be about much more than numbers. That's why many of the offerings here focus on the interesting contributions of people who changed the course of events. One of the essential points we hope readers of this anthology will come away with is the critical importance of specific individuals in shaping the course of the amorphous collective known as "society."

A Republic--if We Can Keep it

Anita Folsom

From the acclaimed author of New Deal or Raw Deal?, called “eye-opening” by the National Review, comes a fascinating exposé of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s destructive wartime legacy—and its adverse impact on America’s economic and foreign policies today. Did World War II really end the Great Depression—or did President Franklin Roosevelt’s poor judgment and confused management leave Congress with a devastating fiscal mess after the final bomb was dropped? In this provocative new book, historians Burton W. Folsom, Jr., and Anita Folsom make a compelling case that FDR’s presidency led to evasive and self-serving wartime policies. At a time when most Americans held isolationist sentiments—a backlash against the stunning carnage of World War I—Roosevelt secretly favored an aggressive interventionist foreign policy. Yet, throughout the 1930s, he spent lavishly on his disastrous New Deal programs and slashed defense spending, leaving America vastly unprepared for Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and the challenge of fighting World War II. History books tell us the wartime economy was a boon, thanks to massive government spending. But the skyrocketing national debt, food rations, nonexistent luxuries, crippling taxes, labor strikes, and dangerous work of the time tell a different story—one that is hardly the stuff of recovery. Instead, the war ushered in a new era of imperialism for the executive branch. Roosevelt seized private property, conducted illegal wiretaps, tried to silence domestic opposition, and interned 110,000 Japanese Americans. He set a dangerous precedent for entangling alliances in foreign affairs, including his remarkable courtship of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, while millions of Americans showed the courage, perseverance, and fortitude to make the weapons and fight the war. Was Roosevelt a great wartime leader, as historians almost unanimously assert? The Folsoms offer a thought-provoking revision of his controversial legacy. FDR Goes to War will make America take a second look at one of its most complicated presidents.

How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America

FDR Goes to War

Examines the impact of entrepreneurs on the history of the United States by analyzing the various industries, steamship, railroads, oil, and steel, that were developed in the nineteenth century.

Entrepreneurs Vs. the State

A revisionist perspective on FDR's presidency and the New Deal argues that such government programs as social security, minimum wage, and farm subsidies didn't work in the 1930s and do not work now, and traces many modern problems to the FDR administration.

Burton W. Folsom

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