Utilizing an extensive array of contemporary sources, Andrew H. Browning masterfully recreates the events and chronology of the new nation’s first great depression, the Panic of 1819. Although not the republic’s first experience with economic distress, the Panic was different from earlier slowdowns, which were all short in duration, more limited in their impact across the nation, and could be traced to particular events. The depression of 1819–1821 was, as Browning makes clear, very different and provided a preview of economic boom-bust cycles that would come to dominate the American capitalist economy. His chapters on the revolutions in markets, transportation, and corporate organization, the environment and agricultural expansion, banking, and politics outline in detail the complex combination of economic, financial, social, political, and environmental factors that led to a deflationary downturn much more severe, more widespread, and with greater political and social impacts than previous recessions.

In addition to his command of information gleaned from newspapers and periodicals representing all parts of the country, from primary sources including government documents and records, and from secondary sources, Browning also thinks broadly about the circumstances of the period to deftly integrate important previously underappreciated elements into the tale of overextension and subsequent collapse. For example, Browning singles out the surge in limited-liability, joint-stock corporations in the decade prior to the Panic and the role those businesses played in the banking and infrastructure developments that were crucial to the post-War of 1812 boom and subsequent bust.

Browning also highlights the importance of the $4 million plus in specie to be paid mostly to foreign holders of Louisiana bonds as they matured in 1818–819. As the Second Bank faced increasing problems with its specie holding, the additional demands of the bond redemptions played a critical role in the tightening of circulation and credit in mid-1818, which precipitated the crisis. Finally, Browning highlights the changes in the political landscape as a result of the Panic that led to a rise in democratic participation and the organization of political factions that were the origins of the Jacksonian era and its increased factional and sectional politics.

In his chapters on hard times in the East and the West, Browning does an exceptional job of combing the reports of the depression and its effect on prices and employment. Much of the reporting of hard times relied on observations and estimates from a variety of sources, newspapers being most prominent. But in some cities, Philadelphia most importantly, a number of committees gathered and examined evidence providing a more accurate indication of the turmoil in the wake of the Panic. The dramatic increase in bankruptcy and actions for debt are consistent with a massive deflation following a period of over extension. However, the reports on falling output and the extent of unemployment raise questions, particularly in light of Joseph H. Davis’ index of industrial production (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119, no. 4 (2004): 1177–215.) and Vadim Khramov and John Ridings Lee’s “Economic Performance Index” (IMF Working Paper, 13/214, 2013). Using 27 production series for the period of the Panic (out of the total of 43 used in the study), Davis finds an increase of 9.6 percent in the physical production of mining and manufacturing from 1819 to 1821. Because industrial output derives its demand from the broader economy, the index suggests the nation’s experience of output declines and unemployment may be less severe than suggested by contemporary observers. Khramov and Lee use measures of inflation, unemployment, the budget deficit, and changes in real GDP to create their index. It shows the period of the Panic of 1819 being less disruptive than any of the nineteenth-century downturns, except 1857.

These results pose an important challenge for economists and economic historians of the early nineteenth century. What additional evidence can be created from existing data sources to build a stronger empirical picture of the nation’s economy of the time and what more can be done to reconcile the reports and estimates of contemporary observers with findings from such empirical evidence?

Those questions aside, the measure of an economic crisis may be more in its lasting impact on the social and political fabric of the nation than in the exact numbers of unemployed or the precise change in the level of prices. Here, Browning in his chapters on relief, politics, and the growth of sectionalism makes a strong case of the importance for the Panic of 1819. Pressure on existing poor relief programs led to reevaluations of those efforts and, combined with the Second Great Awakening, changed public attitudes toward the poor, leading to reductions in poverty programs that persisted for the next hundred years.

Minimum appraisal and stay laws, particularly in the upper South, combined with restrictions on bank charters became common elements in the effort to provide relief from the effects of the Panic. These in turn “sparked the rise in participatory politics and a willingness to organize political factions to protect particular interest” (p. 319).

Finally, the Panic and particularly the perceived role of the Second Bank in precipitating the downturn played a critical role in the increase in sectionalism as well as the shift toward states’ rights that would dominate American politics for decades to come and continue to echo today. Browning is right to subtitle his book about the Panic of 1819 “The First Great Depression.”