Why has the United States experienced so many crippling financial crises? The popular answer: U.S. banks have long been poorly regulated, subjecting the economy to the whims of selfish interest, which must be tempered by more government regulation and centralization. George Selgin turns this conventional wisdom on its head. In essays covering U.S. monetary policy since before the Civil War, he painstakingly traces financial disorder to its source: misguided government regulation, dispelling the myth of the Federal Reserve as a bulwark of stability.