Although Ian MacPherson's 1999 book on the development of the global credit union movement partially
bridges the gap, one of the most gaping holes in contemporary credit
union historiography has been the lack of a synthetic treatment of
the American movement's recent history. While Moody & Fite's The Credit Union Movement remains an
absolutely vital resource, an enormous amount has happened since the
last edition was released in 1984 that has the potential to shine new
interpretive light on the whole sweep of the movement's development.
One
of the benefits of a synthetic work of history is that it organizes
the jumble of changes that characterize its subject's development
into a coherent, meaningful narrative structure. While people often
enter into ferocious debates about the exact parameters of that
structure, having some sort of understanding of the mechanisms by
which the world came to exist in its current form is a powerful aid
to decision-making. Without such a framework, it is impossible to
learn from the past beyond the scope of simple personal experience.
As George Santayana put it more than a century ago, "when
experience is not retained ... infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
As
such, as the years have accumulated since the publication of Moody
and Fite's landmark study, the lack of a follow-up work has left a
critical and growing portion of the credit union story inaccessible
to the vast majority of credit union people who would benefit from
understanding the struggles of their forebears. Fortunately,
this will not be the case much longer. Since the 2009 publication of
his historical fiction novel, The Credit Union Lady,
which traces three generations of a credit union family in Wisconsin,
Paul Thompson has been hard at work on the tentatively titled The
Modern Credit Union Movement, 1970-2010.
Though currently in the final stage of editing (Thompson hopes to
have it in print by the early summer), he was nice enough to send me
an advanced draft for perusal, and I was pleased with what I found.
Drawing
on his decades of personal experience working in the credit union
movement, a variety of documentary sources, and personal interviews,
the current version of Thompson's book fills in many of the most the
current historiography's most obvious holes. Whether discussing the
rise of the community credit union movement, the on-again, off-again
political war with the banks, the movement's delicate relationship
with the National Credit Union Administration, or a wide diversity of
other issues, Thompson's book offers fascinating anecdotes and useful
lessons that demystify the origins of many of the contemporary
movement's practices and institutions. Though I plan on cranking out
a full review when The Modern Credit Union Movement goes
to press, it is already clear that it will be a must-read for all
credit union leaders, whether volunteer or professional.
That's great news. It is amazing how documenting the past will change the future. When you wrote, "Thompson's book offers fascinating anecdotes and useful lessons that demystify the origins of many of the contemporary movement's practices and institutions," I couldn't help but think about what Eric S. Raymond said many years after his publication of the Cathedral and the Bazaar.
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From Revenge of the Hackers.
Thanks for sharing this. "Credit Union History Since 1970"
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