Prophets of Regulation [Paperback]

There is properly no history, only biography, Emerson remarked, and in this ingenious book Thomas McCraw unfolds the history of four powerful men: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, and Alfred E. Kahn. The absorbing stories he tells make this a book that will appeal across a wide spectrum of academic disciplines and to all readers interested in history, biography, and Americana.A novel, stimulating approach& McCraws effort to clarify the nature of regulation by carefully integrating biography, history of ideas and regulatory strategy pays handsome dividends& Each of these prophets wrote extensively, even compulsively, about the theory and practice of regulation. McCraw skillfully melds their words and actions into a series of revealing intellectual portraits.McCraw explains sophisticated economic theory in accessible terms, and he has a historians knack for isolating such basic American traits as a mistrust of big business and for showing how regulators manipulated these traits to implement their policies.An exceptionally good book on the development of government regulatory traditions in twentieth-century America, which illuminates as well the broader course of modern reform& [McCraws] book will become a seminal work in the study of American regulation and reform.In this ingenious book Thomas McCraw unfolds the history of four powerful men: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, and Alfred E. Kahn. The absorbing stories he tells make this a book that will appeal across a wide spectrum of academic disciplines and to all readers interested in history, biography, and Americana.