The Dead Pledge

Walter Friedman, author of American Business History: A Very Short Introduction and Fortune Tellers: America's First Economic Forecasters:
Judge Glock's fascinating book, The Dead Pledge, provides a new perspective on the evolution of American capitalism and the development of modern financial institutions by exploring the intriguing theme of "economic balance" and its allure to a wide range of economic actors, academics, and policy makers from the Progressive Era through the New Deal.

Peter Conti-Brown, author of The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve:
From one of the finest in a growing generation of historians writing at the intersection of finance and politics, we learn about the passions and the interests of financiers, politicians, intellectuals, reformers, and farmers who created the system of government-backed finance that has dominated the modern era. The Dead Pledge provides a new history that will guide our ongoing debates about the appropriate role of government in finance and finance in society.

Richard Sylla, coauthor of Alexander Hamilton on Finance, Credit, and Debt:
America's farmers and home buyers long suffered from limited access to mortgage credit. In this engaging book, Glock aptly shows how federal interventions to boost mortgage lending fostered powerful special interests, which subsequently created new imbalances in the economy. That's why we continue to have housing bubbles and crashes.