Ah....

Adam Smith was so preoccupied with Macroeconomics and so was David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus.

When Smith wrote about unemployment, there wasn't much by way of data to support their arguments.

The guys who came in the aftermath of Ricardo and Malthus were all about micro economics.

But my great friend was different in the sense that he was the first major economist to include trade cycles into the argument-that is to say, we could evaluate production, employment etc.

The 19th century witnessed lots of new nation-states coming into being and a few wars were fought.

But 20th century is when we saw the full debasement of currencies.

Our lives changed forever in 1914 and its effects led to 1939 to 45.

Fiat currency took on a life of its own in the 20th century.

I don't know what books you have read, but you don't give the impression of being remotely cerebral.