The field of American economic history is fortunate to have a wide range of quality textbooks. However, two out of three economic historians feel that a textbook unaccompanied by any other type of reading is unsatisfactory. The majority feel that journal articles and selections from monographs should be used as complements to or substitutes for textbooks (Mitch, 1990). An alternative to the standard textbook is needed, but as we all know, customizing a set of readings can be difficult. We hope that this collection of readings fills the void identified by economic history teachers.

In 1991, the Committee on Education in Economic History organized a syllabus exchange. The response was overwhelming, and many of the syllabi included extensive reading lists. Although the reading lists demonstrate the great variety in what economic historians teach, they also reflect the core readings economic historians assign to their students. The chapters we have included in Historical Perspectives on the American Economy come from this collection of reading lists. They are, in essence, the best-sellers of American economic history, the articles and chapters from the books that most frequently appear on the reading lists in American economic history courses.

A recent quantitative history of the Journal of Economic History reveals the wide range of the topics and time periods examined by American economic historians (Whaples, 1991). Among the topics economic historians have explored most thoroughly are economic growth, money and banking, transportation, technological change, agriculture, slavery and servitude, and labor markets.