The story of America is a story of dreamers and defaulters.  It isalso a story of dramatic financial panics that defined the nation,created its political parties, and forced tens of thousands to escapetheir creditors to new towns in Texas, Florida, and California.  As farback as 1792, these panics boiled down to one simple question: WouldAmericans pay their debts—or were we just a nation of deadbeats?From the merchant William Duer’s attempts to speculate onpost–Revolutionary War debt, to an ill-conceived 1815 plan to sellEnglish coats to Americans on credit, to the debt-fueled railroadexpansion that precipitated the Panic of 1857, Scott Reynolds Nelsonoffers a crash course in America’s worst financial disasters—anda concise explanation of the first principles that caused them all.Nelson shows how consumer debt, both at the highest levels of financeand in the everyday lives of citizens, has time and again left us unableto make good.The problem always starts withthechain of banks, brokers, moneylenders, and insurance companies thatseparate borrowers and lenders.  At a certain point lenders cannot tellgood loans from bad—and when chits are called in, lenders franticallytry to unload the debts, hide from their own creditors, go intobankruptcy, and lobby state and federal institutions for relief.With a historian’s keen observations and a storyteller’s nose forcharacter and incident, Nelson captures the entire sweep of America’sfinancial history in all its utter irrationality: national banks fundedby smugglers; fistfights in Congress over the gold standard; andpresidential campaigns forged in stinging controversies on the subjectof private debt.A Nation of Deadbeatsis a fresh, irreverent look at Americans’ addiction to debt and how it has made us what we are today.