I have been reading Dr. Fischer for almost thirty years since his work, "Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought" was assigned by Dr. Baumgartner in my historical methods class at Virginia Tech. Quite frankly Fischer's "Albion's Seed' is one of the finest American history books for both professional and amateur historians in the 20th century. "The Great Wave" should hold the same position for students of economics and represents the best empirical attack on academic economic theories that I have read since Steve Keen's "Debunking Economics".
However, the book not only attacks economics but the social sciences in general in the United States due to their choice of theory over data. By statistical analysis of historical data Fischer refutes criminology's position on the origins of crime, sociological and ideological explanations for family disintegration, and the free market positions of the Chicago School of economics.
The analysis reveals the following historical facts regarding free markets:
1) Long-term equilibrium occurs over extended periods of time - centuries not decades.
2) Equilibrium is unstable.
3) Free markets are a rarity.
He also establishes seven types of inflation: expansion of the money supply, increases in aggregate demand, supply shocks due to extraneous events, supply shocks due to human manipulation, cost-push inflation, bubble-inflation, and inflationary expectations. What Fischer determines from the analysis is that the impact of these types of inflation is different given the historical conditions under which they interact. What can be catastrophic in one section of the wave pattern has no or limited effect on another point of it. The author essential refutes the absolutism of Monetarist theory on inflation, supports Malthusian dynamics of population and resource limits, confirms the Keynesian position on aggregate demand and aggregate supply forces, and proves the Minskian position on irrational expectations due to the limited historical basis in human perceptions. He also reflects on the teleological limits of Marxism and the positive impact of Fordism on the period of price revolution in the 20th century.
While Dr. Fischer strongly cautions against history as a predictive science, in 1996, he has the following to say about our contemporary times:
"The end of the story has not been written. It could end in many different ways. So fragile were the major trends that contingencies of various kinds threatened to disrupt them. A major war in the Middle East or eastern Europe or some other trouble spot could reignite inflation. A collapse of overvalued security markets could cause panic, depression and deep deflation. In a time of crisis, when so many possibilities were hanging in the narrow balance, much depended on the wisdom of our choices. Wise choices in turn required intelligent leaders and informed electorates. But intelligence and wisdom and even the information that we need most were not in evidence in national capitals throughout the world. As the great wave of the twentieth century approached its climax, the condition of many nations called to mind a Melville novel, or perhaps a Masefield poem. The ship of state raced onward, through high seas and heavy weather. All sails were set, and her helm was lashed to the course that she had long been steering. On the quarterdeck, several parties of myopic navigators squinted dimly at the dark clouds behind them. Somewhere below was their amiable captain, who wanted mainly to be loved by his sullen crew. The first-class passengers amused themselves in their opulent cabins, knowing little of the suffering in steerage, and nothing of the dangers that surrounded them. On deck amidships, a lone bookish traveler turned his collar against the wind, leaned precariously across the lee rail, and tried to read the signs in the sky."
Like all good history there is both analysis and beauty in "The Great Wave" and much for us to consider as we ride our way into a new era, one that Fischer feels will be some intellectual equivalent of the High Middle Ages or the Renaissance or the Enlightenment or the Victorian Age and an end to our Postmodern malaise.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2014
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Top reviews from other countries
P and B
Fantastic book, until he gets political at the end.
Reviewed in Australia on October 20, 2022Damon
Still worth reading in 2017
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 13, 2017Ingo Jackisch
Thumbs up for "The Great Wave"
Reviewed in Canada on December 16, 2014
Helmut de Craigher
Wichtiges Grundlagenwerk - aber mit Fragezeichen
Reviewed in Germany on December 21, 2013