Author Andrew Yarrow To Discuss American Greatness Through Economic Growth in the 20th Century May 12 at Pitt

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh’s Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership, in conjunction with The Forbes Funds, will host a free public lecture by Andrew Yarrow at 9 a.m. May 12 in 3800 Posvar Hall, 230 S. Bouquet St., Oakland. 

Yarrow will discuss his new book, Measuring America: How Economic Growth Came to Define American Greatness in the Late Twentieth Century (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010). The book tells two interlocking stories of how after World War II economics came to have a vastly greater influence on American culture and how that increased influence dovetailed with the growing belief that the United States’ economic performance was an inherent part of the country’s worth. Measuring America tells how and why this new way of assessing our nation’s value developed, how it is expressed, and what it has meant and means for Americans. 

Yarrow is a lecturer of U.S. history at American University. He is the author of the book Forgive Us Our Debts: The Intergenerational Dangers of Fiscal Irresponsibility (Yale University Press, 2008). 

The Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership is part of Pitt’s Graduate School for Public and International Affairs. 

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