Today’s economic problems are not as new as we think, and in the years before the Great Depression, increased access to money raised living standards but also introduced unforeseen risks.

Join Louis Hyman, economic historian and assistant professor at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, for a book talk about his new publication “Borrow: The American Way of Debt” (Vintage Press, January 2012). A former Fulbright scholar and a consultant at McKinsey & Co., Hyman received his PhD in American history in 2007 from Harvard University. His book examines how the rise of consumer borrowing—virtually unknown before the twentieth century—has altered our culture and economy. As lending grew more profitable, it displaced funds available for business borrowing, setting our economy on an unsustainable course. “Borrow” charts the collision of commerce and culture in twentieth-century America.

A reception and book signing will follow. For more information, please call 255-3260, or visit www.ilr.cornell.edu/events/.