How did the United States become the twentieth century's dominant economy? What is special about America and the American way of capitalism, that favoured such a rapid climb to wealth and power? And, as the old postwar certainties begin to crumble, is the climax of American capitalism already over? These are the themes addressed in this engrossing book, which gives a chronological, analytical account of the American economy from the late nineteenth century to the end of the Reagan era and beyond.