Borrowed Dreams

Borrowed Dreams - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education: Panics are not just about the financial health of borrowers. Panics have always been about debt and doubt. America's first panic in 1792 had everything to do with foreign lenders' doubts about Americans' ability to subdue Indians who blocked westward expansion. Recovery came when European investors judged New England smugglers to be safer borrowers than French revolutionary assemblies or Saint Domingue slaveholders and put their money back into American banks.