The book examines the economic history of the American people in its connection with the history of economic thought from the Mayflower (1620) to the present day. It examines both periods of economic progress in the United States and periods of crisis, such as the Great Depression, the stagflation of the 1970s, and the Great Recession. The author analyzes the history of the United States based on the methodology of the Austrian School of Economics (L. von Mises, F. von Hayek, and M. Rothbard). This approach allows us to look at the key events of modern US history from an unusual angle and understand which causes contribute to and which hinder modernization.