Business and economics journalist Binyamin Appelbaum was inspired to title his book after the chapter “Kahn and the Economist's Hour” in Thomas K. McCraw's Pulitzer Prize–winning book, Prophets of Regulation (1984). McCraw highlighted one economist, Alfred E. Kahn, to show how economic analyses entered public policymaking, eventually resulting in deregulation of numerous industries in the 1970s and 1980s. Appelbaum broadens the focus to include many more economists (thus the movement of the apostrophe) and fiscal, monetary, and antitrust policies. From 2010 to 2019 he wrote for the New York Times on economic and financial matters and this experience frames his attempt to discover how economists shaped public policies that contributed to the most significant economic downturn since the Great Depression, the Great Recession (2008–2012). The journalist argues that beginning in the mid-twentieth century free-market economists predicted falsely that lessening government oversight of the economy and allowing market forces to work would result in the growth of capitalism and wealth for many. While capitalism did expand and wealth increased for some, we have today a fractured political economy threatened by extreme inequality.

Appelbaum divides his book into three parts. Part 1 traces the rise of economists in public policymaking and the shift from a Keynesian to a free-market perspective. Lawyers who staffed state and federal regulatory commissions from the late nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century focused on process, not on economic results. That began to change, first with the rise of Keynesian economics in the 1930s and, in a reaction to that approach, with the emergence of the Chicago School of economists by the 1960s. In chapter 1, Appelbaum describes how Milton Friedman's ideas about markets convinced President Richard M. Nixon to support an all-volunteer army (it was cheaper and more efficient than continuing the draft). In chapter 2, he summarizes the Keynesian policies that Friedman was challenging and presents economist Walter Heller, who worked in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, as one of the last Keynesians. The inability to deal with inflation in the 1960s gave Friedman and other free-market economists an opening. To Appelbaum, Friedman's “most important legacy” was shifting policymaking toward eliminating inflation, even if it meant losing jobs (p. 66).

Monetarism dominates chapter 3, and Paul A. Volcker Jr., educated by Austrian émigrés at Princeton, becomes the major tactician, first as president of the New York Fed and later as chair of the Federal Reserve. In an attempt to lower inflation, the Fed forced interest rates into double digits. While job losses were severe then (23 percent of autoworkers lost their jobs), it is the long-term results that impress Appelbaum: “American workers did not recover from the Volcker shock. The median income of a full-time male worker in 1978, adjusted for inflation, was $54,392. That number was not matched or exceeded at any point in the next four decades” (p. 83). He introduces Alan Greenspan, Janet Yellen, and Ben S. Bernanke (whose idea about the “Great Moderation” he effectively undermines) and asserts that “by punishing workers and rewarding lenders, monetary policy was contributing to the rise of economic inequality” (p. 93). He turns to tax cuts in the final chapter of part 1, which necessitates going back to the mid-twentieth century and moving forward again. The Laffer curve, supply-side economics, Proposition 13, Reaganomics, and Clintonian austerity shape this chapter. At the time, some argued that the economic boom of the 1990s was based on the government reduction of interest rates, but Appelbaum argues instead that “the government's greater contribution to economic growth in the 1990s was its spending in earlier decades on education, research, and infrastructure” (p. 122).

In part 2, Appelbaum begins with a primer on antitrust in the United States and then shows how economists altered the legal approach to monopoly during the last half of the twentieth century. Friedman remains influential; George Stigler plays a major role; and Richard Posner and Robert Bork make brief appearances. These economists argued that economic efficiency and consumer welfare should replace bigness per se as the major focus of antitrust. The result was a general rolling back of government antitrust activity during the 1990s and 2000s. Chapter 6 chronicles the attack on regulatory commissions in the 1960s and 1970s and the subsequent passage of airline and trucking deregulation. Appelbaum compares the European experience with that in the United States and concludes that the former has maintained competition more effectively. In chapter 7, “The Value of Life,” he highlights the discussions over how to use cost-benefit analyses when determining whether or not to require safety devices in automobiles and the workplace. The journalist makes the point that historians have known for some time: even while the United States reduced economic regulations, it expanded government responsibility over safety, health, and the environment. He suggests, however, that over time the Europeans assumed leadership in these areas.

Part 3 begins with a chapter on Bretton Woods after World War II. Appelbaum narrowly focuses on monetary issues and Friedman's attack on the system from the time it came into being until Nixon ended it in the 1970s. Volcker, Charles Schultze, and John Connally carried the cause of dollar devaluation from the Fed and the executive branch; subsequent leaders opened international trade, and the results were mixed. While hundreds of millions around the world rose out of poverty and many U.S. citizens benefited from lower costs, “one third of the workers . . . on average . . . lost 30 percent of their income” (p. 245). He concludes the chapter with a brief overview of European efforts to implement the euro. Chapter 9 is a welcome focus on the story in Latin America, particularly on Chile (not Argentina, interestingly). The Chicago School instructed numerous Latin American students on Friedman's market theories and monetarism. The free flow of capital and austerity programs did not work as planned anywhere in Latin America. In a final section, Appelbaum traces the story of economic growth in Taiwan, where engineers, not economists, shaped policy and where government action, not free markets, generated much success. In chapter 10 he includes Phil and Wendy Gramm, Brooksley Born, Long-Term Capital Management, Margaret Thatcher, and Alan Greenspan to show how financial deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s led to the financial crises of the 2000s. In the conclusion Appelbaum asserts that the Economists’ Hour ended with the Great Recession, takes a critical view of the responses to the downturn, and focuses again on wealth inequality (presumably the “fracture of society” in the title).

Appelbaum's book is a good effort to present complicated stories, but too much detail in too many comments at the bottom of pages and discursive endnotes undermines the total effect. While set pieces are nicely done, the connections between them are not always clear; no overall thesis on the comparisons between the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia is presented. The singular focus on Bretton Woods as a monetary story ignores the important institutional roles played by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This is not a definitive book, then, but it is one that historians should consult, for Appelbaum has, as good journalists do, presented a story that can be tested by future historical enquiry.