Why Our Current National Debt is not the Largest in History

The overwhelming majority of people believe the national debt has never been as large as it is today. However, like so much popular information regarding the federal government’s budget, it simply isn’t true. It’s been much larger, and that period of history hardly saw the collapse of the US economy. Furthermore, many economies that we would consider sound and strong actually have more debt than we do. On top of all that, federal government debt is not analogous to that in the private-sector because it represents an injection of wealth, not a drag on growth.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2012/02/26/national-debt-not-largest/