ABOUT THIS BOOK

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A political history of the rise and fall of American debt relief.

Americans have a long history with debt. They also have a long history of mobilizing for debt relief. Throughout the nineteenth century, indebted citizens demanded government protection from their financial burdens, challenging readings of the Constitution that exalted property rights at the expense of the vulnerable. Their appeals shaped the country’s periodic experiments with state debt relief and federal bankruptcy law, constituting a pre-industrial safety net. Yet, the twentieth century saw the erosion of debtor politics and the eventual retrenchment of bankruptcy protections.

The Political Development of American Debt Relief traces how geographic, sectoral, and racial politics shaped debtor activism over time, enhancing our understanding of state-building, constitutionalism, and social policy.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Emily Zackin is associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. Chloe Thurston is associate professor of political science at Northwestern University.

REVIEWS

“Emily Zackin and Chloe Thurston have written an essential book on the history of debt relief in the United States. This is a must-read for anyone interested in American political economy, political development, and constitutional history.”

— Ganesh Sitaraman | author of "The Crisis of the Middle Class Constitution"

“Zackin and Thurston have given us a brilliant, sweeping account of the politics of debt in the United States. Situating debt relief in the context of racialized social policy, they illuminate how the interplay of economic context, organized interests, and constitutional interpretation shaped American bankruptcy laws over the past century and a half. This book is essential reading.”

— Kathleen Thelen | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"The Political Development of American Debt Relief is a gem of a book—deeply researched, elegantly written, and a truly compelling account of the entire trajectory of the unique political economy of consumer debt relief in the United States. Zackin and Thurston tell the story of how debt-relief politics emerged in the nineteenth century and receded in the twentieth before beginning to re-emerge today. Along the way, they produce a model for future scholars of how to do this kind of work: how to thread complex legal and constitutional questions together with the dynamics of class, race, political mobilization, lobbying, and political power."

— Joseph Fishkin | coauthor of "The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution"

"As impressive as this surge of populist fervor was, it represented only one chapter in a much longer conflict between debtors and creditors in the United States—a conflict that is foundational to American politics and yet, for some reason, is mostly forgotten. The Political Development of American Debt Relief seeks to recover this history. . . .The Political Development of American Debt Relief offers important history lessons and even some strategic insights for those of us who are determined to change this situation."

— Astra Taylor, The Nation

"In The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America (U Chicago Press, 2024), [Kahrl] uncovers the history of inequitable and predatory tax laws in the United States. [Kahrl] examines the structural traps within America’s tax system that have forced Black Americans to pay more for less despite being taxpayers with fewer resources compared to white taxpayers. Kahrl exposes these practices, from Reconstruction up to the present, Kahrl exposes these practices to describe how discrimination continues to take new forms, even as people continue to fight for their rights, their assets, and their power."

— New Book Network

TABLE OF CONTENTS