Ben S. Bernanke's Essays on the Great Depression make satisfying reading. Spanning microeconomic foundations and macroeconomic outcomes, the book pulls together articles containing some of the best and most conclusive research on the economic catastrophe of the 1930s. Bernanke's work, with co-authors Harold James, Ilian Mihov, James L. Powell, Martin Parkinson, and Kevin Carey, tackles key questions head-on; here the reader will find lucid treatment of the role played in the crisis by worldwide operation of the gold standard, as well as dissection of key developments in interwar labor-market institutions. The work is on the methodological forefront, with a number of careful comparative analyses across nations and industries.