Writing in the June 1965 issue of theEconomic Journal, Harry G. Johnson begins with a sentence seemingly calibrated to the scale of the book he set himself to review: "The long-awaited monetary history of the United States by Friedman and Schwartz is in every sense of the term a monumental scholarly achievement--monumental in its sheer bulk, monumental in the definitiveness of its treatment of innumerable issues, large and small . . . monumental,...

Milton Friedman demonstrates through historical events the mischief that can result from misunderstanding the monetary system; how, for example, the work of two obscure Scottish chemists destroyed the presidential prospects of William Jennings Bryan, and how Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to appease a few senators from the American West helped communism triumph in China. He discusses the creation of value, from stones to feathers to gold. He outlines...

"The fundamental motive for financial innovation is not to make the system work better, but to avoid regulation and oversight. This is not a bug of the financial system, but a built-in feature. The president of the US is not a tax avoider because he is an especially fraudulent financier; he's a tax avoider because he is a wealthy man in a system premised on such deceit. Finance is an industry of sabotage. This book is a brilliant, intellectual detective...