The research contained in this book has been cited by Ben Bernanke and Christina Romer, two of the most knowledgeable experts on the Great Depression, as some of the best empirical work in economics, yet it's rated 3.97 stars. That makes no sense.

Comprehensive and broad.

Meticulously researched, but Friedman could’ve left some of the details in the footnotes in favour of brevity and cogent narrative.

His writing is dry.

At times some of his libertarian points come across as silly.

Friedman is without a doubt one of the most dry authors out there. His writing style leaves much to be desired. Also, when you read his works, you get the impression that he is NOT a man of faith. I don’t know this for certain, but I walk away from his books with a feeling of deep spiritual foreboding. I’d recommend that Bible-believing Christians avoid this book.

"A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 by Milton Friedman (1971)"

Extremely dull and unwilling to explain what it's trying to say.

Friedman believes that money causes economic behavior than the other way around, as explained by every summary of this book ever. Friedman doesn't say that, though. He just keeps pumping out numbers and charts and not explaining anything and asking you to assume conclusions and hypotheticals. The first time you reach a page that has a large pull-out chart, it's kind of fun for its own sake. But he did a terrible job of explaining what he was trying to do.

It perks up a little when it does political history because then there's some narrative at least.

meh. Does have some sweet charts.

A history of economics. Well researched and informative, but a dry read.

The indispensable reference for historical data and commentary on the US monetary system in the context of economic history from the civil war until 1960.

Given the number of times I re-read passages to make sure I grasped what Friedman was saying, and given all the underlining and !-ing I did throughout, I’d say I’ve actually read this book three times in the past 30+ days. It’s been work.
Conclusions?
If one wanted to bring down the US banking system, perhaps as a means of paving the way for a socialist takeover of the country, one could not have created a a better tool for doing that than the Federal Reserve System. And that’s kind of what happened. The incompetence of the Fed in the years 1929-32 and even up to 1939 is just about enough to turn me into a conspiracy theorist. Happily, Friedman is much more generous, seeing the perpetrators of the Great Depression as well-intentioned although breathtaking ly wrong-headed. Well, no worry. All that’s behind us and the Fed has only gotten more powerful in the 60 years since this book was written. I’m so relieved.

My only criticism of the book is a totally unfair one. I wish Friedman had included more about the international financial system and its impact on the US as well as the impact of what happened in the US on other countries, particularly in Europe. He does discuss gold inflows and outflows and international capital movements, and their impact on the US stock of money etc, but I feel the book is a bit “light” in that department. Of course, that would make for another 700-page book, so, forget that criticism.

This is truly a masterpiece. I wish other historians were as thorough as Friedman in their own writings, or at least understood enough of this topic to be able to incorporate Friedman’s wisdom and intellectual honesty into their own world view.

I probably only understood 50-60% of what they were talking about in this book, but since it is considered one of the seminal achievements in economics in the 20th Century, I guess I don't feel I have the right to give it a bad rating.

FINALLYYYYYY oh my goodness cannot believe Rory took a finance class that rude gal, no way am I giving this higher than 1 star for the sole purpose I want this type of book as far away from my algorithm as it can POSSIBLY be

A silver lining to a COVID-19 lockdown is plenty of time to read! This work of F&S is a monument to scholarship and represents an irreplaceable reference source for the study of the role of monetary policy in the economy. Whilst subsequent economists (e.g., Bernanke, Minsky, Gertler, et.al.) have refined or even disputed major conclusions of F&S’, the book remains a classic and a requisite inclusion in the libraries of students of economics.