How inflation and deflation fears shape American democracy.

Many foundational moments in American economic history—the establishment of paper money, wartime price controls, the rise of the modern Federal Reserve—occurred during financial panics as prices either inflated or deflated sharply. The government’s decisions in these moments, intended to control price fluctuations, have produced both lasting effects and some of the most contentious debates in the nation’s history.

A sweeping history of the United States’ economy and politics, Shock Values reveals how the American state has been shaped by a massive, ever-evolving effort to insulate its economy from the real and perceived dangers of price fluctuations. Carola Binder narrates how the pains of rising and falling prices have brought lasting changes for every generation of Americans. And with each brush with price instability, the United States has been reinvented—not as a more perfect union, but as a reflection of its most recent failures.

Shock Values tells the untold story of prices and price stabilization in the United States. Expansive and enlightening, Binder recounts the interest-group politics, legal battles, and economic ideas that have shaped a nation from the dawn of the republic to the present.

"Binder argues fluctuations in prices have 'shaped American democracy since its very beginning,' influencing the size, structure and scope of government. . . .Binder skillfully traces America’s circuitous path from a gold and silver standard to a fiat currency, as well as the nation’s recurrent battles over centralized monetary power, from Andrew Jackson’s war on the Second Bank of the United States in 1832 to calls for ending the Fed today. But Shock Values is much more than a monetary history. Many of the most illuminating sections concern non-monetary responses to price fluctuations, such as government attempts to control prices directly by setting maximum or minimum prices." - The Financial Times

"[Shock Values] is the new and very useful book by Carola Binder...a very good economic history." - Marginal Revolution

"Shock Values [is] a timely subject in this inflation-focused presidential election year. Carola Binder expounds on monetary ideas both sound and otherwise. She takes up tariffs, antitrust policy, price control, rent control, the minimum wage and the quest for the will-o’-the-wisp called 'price stability.' Her brisk narrative, starting in colonial times, carries the reader all the way down to the tumultuous present." - The Wall Street Journal

"In [Shock Values], Binder looks back at the long history of politics, inflation and how the government has tried to respond, at times through fiscal policy like price controls, at others with monetary policy." - Marketplace

"Binder examines the economic destabilization caused by fluctuations in the cost of goods and the effective—and often controversial—remedies the American government has historically used to steady the market, plus their lasting effects. . . .A solid history of American economic policies." - Library Journal

"Shock Values is a very readable monetary history of the United States, from the Revolutionary era to the 2020s. . . .An excellent overview." - The Enlightened Economist

"Shock Values explores how price fluctuations and attempts to manage them have shaped American democracy, analyzing examples of the disparate impacts of price fluctuations and their political consequences. [Binder] covers the colonial and Revolutionary War eras, focusing on monetary arrangements, inflation, and price controls in the colonies and the new nation." - Journal of Economic Literature