I wish that I had this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education written by William & Mary’s Scott Nelson handy when I taught AMH4373: History of American Capitalism last year.  The piece covers the long history of American indebtedness and, in a very sneaky and savvy way, gets quite a bit of historiography into the mix. This is no small feat, as that genre is often quite difficult to pull off for a popular audience.

Students would be well advised to check out the longer book that this comes from–I will be considering it for that course next year for sure.
Check out the article here.