Book Description
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan's critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, "the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect" (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, "The Worst Hard Time" is "arguably the best nonfiction book yet" (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature.
Customer Reviews:
It's Good --- but is it National-Book-Award good?.......2007-10-16
I liked this book. For the most part.
It's an exciting account of an amazing and horrific time in the nation's history, and its descriptions of the dust storms as they came in over the prairies are absolutely terrifying--but I think it's far from the great book that it could have been.
The story, of course, is one of the great stories of American history, and will no doubt enthrall any readers unfamiliar with the 1930s Dust Bowl. But the book fails, I think, in bringing across the full scope of it all, focusing so intently on handful of towns and counties (and always forgetting to remind us what states these towns are in) that it feels like more like a gathering of a number of isolated occurrences. It also fails to provide all the facts that the story begs to contain. And it kind of peters off toward the end, as if the author just grew tired of the subject.
Is this a good book? Sure. I enjoyed it. But would I have given it the National Book Award? No. And is it the best book on the subject? No, again. I prefer the book "Dust Bowl," by Donald Worster, which I found to be much more thorough and vivid in its treatment of the subject.
Outstanding.......2007-10-10
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
This is an outstanding book! I had no idea how bad the Dust Bowl was. I was so impressed with the book that I bought a copy for each of my 3 siblings.
Unbelievable!.......2007-10-03
This book was fantastic. Although the majority of books I read are fiction, I'm not hesitant to read good non-fiction. This book was so well written that it reads like a taut novel. Along with Seabiscuit and The Devil in the White City, it is one of the best historical books I've read. Very well researched and thought out. You almost can't believe that this could have actually happened. You feel like you know the characters, and you certainly root for them even though you seemingly know how it will turn out. I would recommend this book to any avid reader - fiction or non-fiction.
Hopefully, we will learn from our past.......2007-10-02
This is an important event in US history that is so relevant today, supplying more fuel for both side of the ongoing debate on global warming.
I found it a bit difficult to stay connected to the characters. In spite of that, the story remained interesting, showing the plight and hardships endured by the generation before us, and bringing us an awareness of our fragile ecosystem.
Eye Opening and Hard to Put Down.......2007-09-25
A must read for history buffs and readers in general. Information places the midwest, its people, and past in an entirely different light of appreciation. (Absolutely Facinating)!
Amazon.com
First published in 1970, this classic of oral history features the voices of men and women who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s. It includes accounts by congressmen C. Wright Patman and Hamilton Fish, as well as failed presidential candidate Alf M. Landon, who recalls what it was like to be governor of Kansas in 1933:
Men with tears in their eyes begged for an appointment that would help save their homes and farms. I couldn't see them all in my office. But I never let one of them leave without my coming out and shakin' hands with 'em. I listened to all their stories, each one of 'em. But it was obvious I couldn't take care of all their terrible needs.
The book includes also the perspectives of ordinary men and women, such as Jim Sheridan, who took part in the 1932 march by World War I veterans to petition for their benefits in Washington, D.C., where they were repelled by army troops led by General Douglas MacArthur. Or Edward Santander, who was a child then: "My first memories come about '31. It was simply a gut issue then: eating or not eating, living or not living." Studs Terkel makes history come alive, drawing out experiences and emotions from his interviewees to the degree few have ever been able to match.
Book Description
Studs Terkel's classic history of the Great Depression.
In this unique re-creation of one of the most dramatic periods in modern American history, Studs Terkel recaptures the Great Depression of the 1930s in all its complexity. The book is a mosaic of memories from those who were richest to those who were most destitute: politicians like James Farley and Raymond Moley; businessmen like Bill Benton and Clement Stone; a six-day bicycle racer; artists and writers; racketeers; speakeasy operators, strikers, and impoverished farmers; people who were just kids; and those who remember losing a fortune.
Hard Times is not only a gold mine of information—much of it little known—but also a fascinating interplay of memory and fact, showing how the Depression affected the lives of those who experienced it firsthand, often transforming the most bitter memories into a surprising nostalgia.
Customer Reviews:
Book review.......2007-05-09
Book was never received and four inquiries to book dealer were ignored. I gave it one star because there was no zero or less.
Not great, but still very good........2007-03-09
This is the second book by Terkel I've read, the other being his superlative "The Good War". Like that book, it is a joy to read, and it was often hard to put down. He usually opens his interviews with just enough exposition to set up a scene, and then lets his subjects talk. And, do they! The personalities of each come through such that you feel as if you're sharing the room with them, an experience that is the more poignant for the realization that most of the people in this book are long-dead, taking their stories with them.
Nonetheless, the book has its weaknesses. Though the Great Depression is by definition an extremely broad subject, I never felt quite like I was getting a good "slice of life" of the times. For instance, there seem to be a disproportionate number of interviews with former Communists and socalists; though their movement was powerful during the Thirties, one may get the idea that they were more common than they actually were--especially since, as one reviewer noted, much of the book is set in and around Chicago. On the whole, it's a less gripping text than "The Good War"; reading that book felt like an awakening, while this one will reveal little to those with a working knowledge of the Depression-era U.S.
All that said, I'm glad I read it, and still recommend it for anyone interested in this complex and unsettling period of American history.
Informative. But It Dragged........2005-08-12
There is undeniable value in recording the memories and perspectives of people who have lived through something as remarkable as the Great Depression. The Internet of the future may provide the best possible compilation of such raw materials: only then may we see video and hear audio of the actual event, culled from tape recordings and home movies of the 1970s and before, and from film reels of the 1920s and after. Compared to resources like those, the relatively brief excerpts that Studs Terkel offers in this book cannot help but feel tailored, managed, and limiting.
I say the Internet of the future may be the ultimate resource. But in an important sense, that is exactly wrong. The ultimate resource would have been to have lived during those times -- to have experienced the event firsthand, and to have interviewed people and recorded information as it was unfolding. Do we, indeed, obtain a more compelling, a more visceral impression of the Great Depression by reading these timeworn memories, from the 1960s, of events that had taken place some 30 years earlier?
In some ways, no decade in the 20th century could have been farther away from the 1930s than were the 1960s. We had newfound suburban materialism; the race to the Moon; John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Great Society; LSD; rebellious youth and college as one's real home; American global supremacy; Vietnam and the Cold War. We were *so* far removed from the 1930s, by then. When Americans looked back from the later decade to the earlier one, they could not help but do so through very colored lenses. The values of the 1960s -- the things that people would tend to speak about, in the 1960s -- did visibly flavor the way that Terkel's interviewees spoke about their distant past.
Terkel's work is not history. It is a compilation of raw materials that a historian could use for some purposes. No doubt the historian would have to work through heaps of old material that might frequently repeat itself or express the same general impressions, just as Terkel's increasingly tedious interviews tend to do, as one progresses through the book. But a good historian would find a way to condense that material, to extract its most telling points, and to organize and present them in an intriguing and highly thought-provoking manner. This would be true even of the historian whose written work rested heavily upon verbatim quotations from primary sources. You have to make a point. You have to say something provocative if you expect people to get excited about your work.
I do recommend skimming this book, dipping occasionally into its anecdotes and observations. There is much to be learned here. But I don't believe it is going to give many people just what they want for the Depression. Instead, consider reading a novel about the 1930s, or one written in the 1930s; browse old magazines and, particularly, old newspapers, including both the big ones (e.g., the New York Times) and the small, local ones -- if you can find any of the latter that have been preserved in your area.
Gather your own data from these sources and elsewhere, and don't restrict yourself, as much of Terkel's book does, to one city. The 1930s was a world unto itself. This book does not do it justice.
Listening to people's stories .......2004-10-31
Studs Terkel discovered the great value of talking and listening to people, having them tell him their stories. In this way he developed a technique for gathering together a tremendously rich picture of life in the Depression. And these accounts generally have an authenticity and power of their own.
This is social history which is highly readable.
Required Reading For The 21st Century Depression.......2002-12-19
This book is a compilation of oral recountings of the Great Depression of the 20th Century, taken by Studs Terkel. The book can be regarded as an excellent primary source of information from a historical point of view. These are anecdotes from people ranging from sharecroppers on up to highly placed executives, politicians, and professionals. Terkel leaves no stone unturned, as these stories (grouped by occupation and social stratum) show how the Depression affected people in all walks of life in the United States.
No secondary source is going to prove as truthful as the stories themselves. No high-flying armchair analysis by a detached political commentator, PhD or windbag is going to give you the true flavor of what our country went through after October, 1929.
We are in the midst of an economic downturn that has 800,000 American citizens without unemployment insurance, a looming health crisis among unemployed members of the middle class, and a war on the horizon. If you want to be prepared and to understand the ramifications of this situation, I urge you to not only read this book cover to cover, but also to go out and find people who lived through this time and listen to their stories. Go to your grandparents, parents, elderly relatives, the old guy on the porch across the street, the local senior centers. Ask them to talk.
Understanding history helps us understand the future.
Studs Terkel's book is a recounting of the past, but is also a story of our coming future.
Read it!
Book Description
“Admirers of FDR credit his New Deal with restoring the American economy after the disastrous contraction of 1929—33. Truth to tell–as Powell demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt–the New Deal hampered recovery from the contraction, prolonged and added to unemployment, and set the stage for ever more intrusive and costly government. Powell’s analysis is thoroughly documented, relying on an impressive variety of popular and academic literature both contemporary and historical.”
–
Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, Hoover Institution
“There is a critical and often forgotten difference between disaster and tragedy. Disasters happen to us all, no matter what we do. Tragedies are brought upon ourselves by hubris. The Depression of the 1930s would have been a brief disaster if it hadn’t been for the national tragedy of the New Deal. Jim Powell has proven this.”
–
P.J. O’Rourke, author of Parliament of Whores and Eat the Rich
“The material laid out in this book desperately needs to be available to a much wider audience than the ranks of professional economists and economic historians, if policy confusion similar to the New Deal is to be avoided in the future.”
–
James M. Buchanan, Nobel Laureate, George Mason University
“I found Jim Powell’s book fascinating. I think he has written an important story, one that definitely needs telling.”
–
Thomas Fleming, author of The New Dealers’ War
“Jim Powell is one tough-minded historian, willing to let the chips fall where they may. That’s a rare quality these days, hence more valuable than ever. He lets the history do the talking.”
–David Landes, Professor of History Emeritus, Harvard University
“Jim Powell draws together voluminous economic research on the effects of all of Roosevelt’s major policies. Along the way, Powell gives fascinating thumbnail sketches of the major players. The result is a devastating indictment, compellingly told. Those who think that government intervention helped get the U.S. economy out of the depression should read this book.”
–
David R. Henderson, editor of The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics and author of The Joy of Freedom
The Great Depression and the New Deal. For generations, the collective American consciousness has believed that the former ruined the country and the latter saved it. Endless praise has been heaped upon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for masterfully reining in the Depression’s destructive effects and propping up the
country on his New Deal platform. In fact, FDR has achieved mythical status in American history and is considered to be, along with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents of all time. But would the Great Depression have been so catastrophic had the New Deal never been implemented?
In
FDR’s Folly, historian Jim Powell argues that it was in fact the New Deal itself, with its shortsighted programs, that deepened the Great Depression, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly. You’ll discover in alarming detail how FDR’s federal programs hurt America more than helped it, with effects we still feel today, including:
• How Social Security actually increased unemployment
• How higher taxes undermined good businesses
• How new labor laws threw people out of work
• And much more
This groundbreaking book pulls back the shroud of awe and the cloak of time enveloping FDR to prove convincingly how flawed his economic policies actually were, despite his good intentions and the astounding intellect of his circle of advisers. In today’s turbulent domestic and global environment, eerily similar to that of the 1930s, it’s more important than ever before to uncover and understand the truth of our history, lest we be doomed to repeat it.
Customer Reviews:
An unique read.......2007-07-08
This is a good book for everyone. It gives a perspective that you don't see often in history books about President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since FDR was a great president, it's easy to write a pro-FDR history book but this book points out the flaws in FDR's policies and how the New Deal did not actually end the Great Depression. Personally, I am a fan of FDR and his policies but he was not perfect, nor were all his programs perfect. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in reading more about FDR and getting many different perspectives.
Excellent research tool .......2007-06-09
I have researched many sources to learn and document the real facts of FDR's influence on the Great Depression's recovery. This book is the best source yet. It discloses and explains FDR's socialist policies that delayed the recovery and that gave socialism it's stronghold in the USA. Great source to use to discuss with those that think FDR is a saint and who are class warfare believers.
One of the Worst We've Ever Had.......2007-06-09
It is a common trait of human nature to judge people and events within the limited historical scope of their own lifetimes. We tend to think of things in absolutes (e.g. - "It's never been this bad" or "he's the worst president ever,") because we have no historical context in which to properly judge the actual significance of a person or an event that we personally experience. As a result, we tend to take on faith the judgment of "experts" about those people and events that lie outside of our own personal experience. Unless we actually take the time and effort to investigate an historical person or event for ourselves, we will always tend to agree with the "general consensus."
Jim Powell's "FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression" is one of those historical sources that will change your opinion from that of the "general consensus" that FDR is one of the top five American presidents to something appropriately lower. In this rigorously cited work, Powell presents evidence that FDR's New Deal, far from helping the country recover from the Great Depression, actually extended and exacerbated it.
Powell begins by introducing the FDR's main actors who collectively constructed the New Deal. Almost to a man, they were ambitious, arrogant Ivy Leaguers who thought they knew better how to control an economy than the millions of citizens who daily executed informed economic choices in a free market. As Powell explains, "some New Dealers were outright socialists" who rejected free market economics. Indeed, Chamber of Commerce president, Henry Harriman, typified this attitude when he declared that "laissez-faire must be replaced by a philosophy of planned national economy." Powell also relates how "many people in FDR's administration especially admired Italian fascism."
Powell then addresses several aspects of the New Deal with chapter titles that are questions such as "Why Did FDR Seize Everybody's Gold?," "Why Did the New Dealers Destroy All That Food When People Were Hungry?" and "How Did New Deal Labor Laws Throw People Out of Work?" Then, with sound economic analysis, backed by facts and citations, Powell meticulously describes how New Deal policies made things worse instead of better.
New Deal policies consisted of higher taxes, minimum wages, price controls, production limits and myriad other things that were exactly the wrong things to do to bring about economic recovery. Many of these policies were so-called "experiments," but as Powell writes, "Such policies were `experiments' only to the degree that New Dealers were ignorant about what had been tried and failed before." New Deal policies also assaulted individual liberty and economic freedom. Indeed, in April of 1934, Jacob Maged "was jailed for three months and fined for charging 35 cents to press a suit, rather than the 40 cents mandated by the NRA dry cleaning code." Powell summarizes, "Wherever there is dictatorial power over an economy, wherever economic liberty is denied, people are sure to be suffering agonies of the damned. New Dealers assumed that individual rights, private property, and economic liberty were obstacles to recovery, but they are essential."
Particularly disturbing during this time was FDR's encroachment on constitutional freedoms. Many today accuse George W. Bush of being a dictator, but Bush can't hold a candle to the imperial presidency of FDR. As Powell explains, "...FDR was impatient with American democracy, and he issued an extraordinary number of executive orders - 3728 altogether - which is more than all the executive orders issued by his successors Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton combined." Many of these had the power of law behind them, effectively circumventing the legislature. FDR's assault on constitutional liberty was so severe, that in a November 1941 "Fortune" magazine poll "93 percent of employers said they expected their property rights to be undermined and also anticipated the possibility of a dictatorship."
Powell's book conclusively proves that the New Deal was an economic and civil rights disaster whose effects are still being felt today. FDR and his administration, arrogant in their ignorance, committed the cardinal sin of thinking they knew better than all those who had gone before. The sheer destructiveness of FDR's assault on freedom and his economic incompetence disqualifies him from the top five of "general consensus" and rightly places him near the bottom of American presidents.
Sets the Record Straight.......2007-02-16
What ended the Great Depression was not the New Deal, but instead World War II. However, both liberals and neoconservatives alike have taken as gospel the idea that massive governmental intervention are good for the economy.
As Jim Powell in FDR's Folly makes clear, the New Deal was an unmitigated disaster in its own right. The agricultural policy was a total bust. The unprecedented tax rates drained investment capital out of the economy. The New Deal programs were basically boondoggles with the much ballyhooed Tennessee Valley Authority being rife with corruption.
Jim Powell's FDR's Folly should be required reading in American classrooms.
Not all revisionism is wrong.........2007-01-11
After reading most of these reviews, I feel hard put to place anything new on this book here. The subject matter is important and seems to be finally getting the attention it needs. FDR's false legacy of caring and supreme competence is finally getting the scrutinty needed to be laid to rest. The Great Depression would have simply been another temporary blip like the other half dozen or so in American history EXCEPT the worshippers of government had gotten the reins of power.
Mr.Powell takes each one of the various programs of FDRs and tears them apart. Copiously footnoted, the details are gathered here and show the failure of the entire government intervention for the period. And as others noted, Mr. Hoover gets laid to waste and deservedly so for his part in the whole mess.
Economists have long had a problem with the FDR savior legend, historians now seem to finally be joining in to give him a long overdue come uppenace. I will have my teaching degree next year and plan on letting my students know the true story of FDR's mismanagement-we'll see how long I'm allowed to teach that however!
Book Description
A perennial backlist performer.
Customer Reviews:
Bias masquerading as history.......2007-08-02
This was an extremely disapointing book. Just plain silly!! At this late date all but the most doctrinaire of socialists agree that the policies advocated by both Hoover and FDR were ruinous from an economic standpoint. No one before or since has advocated raising taxes, raising the price of material and labor, and demonizing the business sector (to say nothing of the other myriad benighted policies and palatives) during an economic downturn. That is why both the duration and severity of the "Great" Depression of the 1930's are unprecedented in this country. Additionally, the author betrays his childish biases by consistantly abandoning his stated topic to attack the economic policies of the 1980's. What is the connection????????? Future generations will recognize FDR for what he was... A brilliant politician, dilettant demagogue who truely fooled most of the people most of the time.
Well written historical account........2006-10-09
McElvaine provides a well researched and scholarly account of an era that changed a nation and unsufficient political system forever. He does so through meticulous research and close examination of social, political, economic, ethnic, and individual structure leading up to, and directly after the great fall. Once more, McElvaine ties together a copious amount of research with astute, well reasoned observations that actually lessen the complexity of the often misinterpreted era. Like many of the other reviews state, this book is truly a great source for research. It is unfortunate, however, that McElvaine, time and again, attempts to correlate Depression era failure(s) to Reagan administration policy of the 1980s - largely the time when McElvaine was compiling information for this book. In the first few chapters alone, Reagan's name, or policy, is brought up repeatedly. By the time you have reached the middle of the book, you may begin to feel as though you are not only reading about the Great Depression but are also playing a game of "Where's Waldo" (except inserting the name of Ronald Reagan instead). I do not bring this point up to defend Ronald Reagan's legacy or his tenure in office. In fact, I am neither Republican nor did I vote for Ronald Reagan. It is simply that the tone that the author presents, reminiscant of whining, distracts one from the book's actual theme - The Great Depression. However, if you are able to get beyond this single point, the work presented here stands on its own, and regardless of distractions, is well worth exploring.
Nice social history of the Depression Years.......2006-10-08
Robert McElvaine has taken a different approach to studying the Great Depression - instead of looking primarily at how the Roosevelt administration attacked the depression, he looks at how the years affected the people of the United States.
This is not to say that he excludes consideration of Hoover or FDR and thier respective administrations from the book - quite the contrary, in fact. McElvaine explains that the American people thought Hoover was exactly what they wanted in 1928 when they elected him, and how the Roosevelt administration attempted to focus its goals on improving the lot of the general populous (i.e. making the banks feel safe again, as opposed to the nuts & bolts of the legislation to resolve the banking crisis that FDR faced immediately upon taking office).
I found McElvaine's consistent use of letters from affected Americans to the President and First Lady to be very interesting and a valuable addition to the argument that McElvaine was making; that FDR was a source of hope & inspiration to so many, although he may not have been the world's greatest economic theorist.
The one complaint I have about this book is the all too-frequent referrals to the Reagan administration, or how something similar happened forty years later. I understand that the author is simply attempting to put the history in a context that the reader may understand better, but this will not serve the readers of today that don't know the Carter/Reagan years as well as some of us that are a little older.
Overall, I would recommend this volume to anyone who has an interest in what effect this horrendous economic crisis had on the people of America, as long as the reader expects to look at the people & not the policies of the administration.
Biased book but worth a read.......2006-01-27
The definitive book on the Great Depression (GD) of the US has not been written yet. If it were, you would see facts such as: the GD was not as severe in term of lost output over one or two years as other past depressions in the US, what the GD exceeded in was unemployment over a long period of time (> 2 yrs); how the Fed. Reserve contributed to the GD; how the "market crash" of 1929 actually started out as a routine stock market correction but was made worse by the Fed Reserve; how the make-work policies of Roosevelt as aided by Keynes failed to stimulate the economy out of depression; how the GD was used as a cover to make the US economy more socialist (perhaps a necessary evil in view of the worldwide popularity of communism at the time). And so forth.
BTW I have not read this book.
Left-leaning in its bias, but nevertheless informative.......2005-09-10
Robert McElvaine's account of the economic collapse and cultural shock wrought by the Great Depression effectively re-creates this singular national trauma. The author clearly traces how Presidents Hoover's and Roosevelt's responses shaped the country's modern-day expectations of the role the federal government is expected to play in the daily lives of its citizens. In addition to its causes, McElvaine paints a compelling picture of the challenges faced by working class people in the Depression's wake, as well as its affects on traditional American values. For example, he writes of how the uniquely American characteristics of independence, rugged individualism, and self-reliance that had been celebrated throughout our country's history were called into question in light of the impact of the economic collapse. Although these attitudes were revived as World War II brought a return to prosperity, the new roles assumed by Washington - both as the provider of societal entitlements and as consumer watchdog - had become irrevocably entrenched.
The author's central thesis is based upon the demonization of those twin capitalistic ideologies derisively labeled by McElvaine as the "consumption ethic" and the "philosophy of unlimited productivity," which he claims escalated out of (government) control until the economy collapsed in 1929. American society's single-minded pursuit of riches might have received the endorsement of Adam Smith during simpler times, claims McElvaine, but the modern automated mass-production techniques employed by huge corporations had destructively warped America's free-market system. What emerged from the economic wreckage was recognition by the intelligentsia that unregulated capitalism was insufficient for the needs of modern-day America. It was subsequently conceded by the country-at-large that the power of the state would be needed to stimulate both prices and consumption. As a result, the conservative "hands-off" philosophy of Herbert Hoover was rejected by voters, to be replaced with the progressive "tax, spend, and regulate" agenda of Franklin Roosevelt.
Utilizing a wide variety of historical books and monographs by prominent Washington insiders, labor leaders, and historians, the book is chronologically organized into fifteen chapters beginning with the end of World War I and progressing through two decades to the start of U.S. involvement in World War II. McElvaine effectively weaves a tale outlining philosophies and day-to-day machinations of Roosevelt's "brain trust" with the everyday hardships endured by the "great unwashed" as both groups struggled against the tide of America's economic calamity. Each chapter begins with an illuminating picture from the era that provocatively sets the emotional tone for that chapter's topic.
Displaying a clear bias against wealthy achievers and entrepreneurs in favor of the working poor ("The self-interest of the poor coincides with justice, that of the rich with injustice.") the author also displays an unapologetic admiration for Roosevelt's policies, though he does admit to their ultimate ineffectiveness. But McElvaine forgives these failures because the president's intensions were noble. Roosevelt is thus judged by the author on the basis of his intensions, not by the success of his programs. The book is clearly moralistic in its structure, and McElvaine's descriptions of America's pre-industrial habits, customs, and family life are compared favorably with old-fashioned ideals. McElvaine longs for those pre-industrial virtues, bemoaning the fast-moving, mass-producing, conspicuous consumption of post-World War I America.
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The Great Depression and the New Deal: Teachers Guide (Teaching with Documents)
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Book Description
On October 24, 1929, America met the greatest economic devastation it had ever known. In this first installment of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Freedom from Fear, Kennedy tells how America endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of that unprecedented calamity. Kennedy vividly demonstrates that the economic crisis of the 1930s was more than a reaction to the excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before the Crash, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom and bust cycles, consuming capital and inflicting misery on city and countryside alike. Nor was the alleged prosperity of the 1920s as uniformly shared as legend portrays. Countless Americans eked out threadbare lives on the margins of national life. Roosevelt's New Deal wrenched opportunity from the trauma of the 1930s and created a lasting legacy of economic and social reform, but it was afflicted with shortcomings and contradictions as well. With an even hand Kennedy details the New Deal's problems and defeats, as well as its achievements. He also sheds fresh light on its incandescent but enigmatic author, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Marshalling unforgettable narratives that feature prominent leaders as well as lesser-known citizens, The American People in the Great Depression tells the story of a resilient nation finding courage in an unrelenting storm.
Customer Reviews:
Buy the single volume version instead.......2007-05-07
This book was originally released as a single volume. In 2003, they rereleased it as a 2 volume set. The single volume version, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States), is still available and is much cheaper than buying these 2 volumes separately.
The first volume of a 2 vol set - enjoyable & insightful.......2006-09-23
David M. Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize for his one volume work entitled "Freedom From Fear" - this volume is the first half of that work, and covers the period 1929-1939.
Mostly addressing the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Presidency of FDR, Kennedy has given us a thorough (yet somewhat biased) primarily economic-based analysis of the period.
He focuses on how American society was affected by the economic shifts during this period, which, naturally, was a critical portion of American history during these years, since the Depression was an economic crisis unlike any previously seen.
The one trouble I had with the book was that Kennedy differs from many people in saying that Herbert Hoover (FDR's predecessor in the White House) had the ideas on how to combat & beat the Depression, and FDR simply continued & implemented many of those ideas. He gives FDR virtually no credit except to say he's a master politician.
Kennedy does give the reader fantastic background information & helps the reader to understand what the daily economic plights were. If you're looking for a true social history (i.e. what the people were going through every day, look at a book like Robert McElvaine's "The Great Depression, 1929-1941"). Overall, though, this is a very well written and concise volume covering the crucial years of the Depression era. Kennedy concludes with the German invasion of Poland (September 1, 1939), which is where the 2nd volume of this set inevitably will begin.
Fun to Read, and Insightful.......2005-07-28
I'm old enough to have live through the eventful 16-years (1929-1945)covered by Prof. David Kennedy's 2-volume history of that period of modern American history; for about half of that time, I was intellectually aware of what was happening; and I have read widely about the New Deal and WW-II. However, nothing I had been exposed to prior to reading "Freedom from Fear" gave me the context and an over-all understanding of the issues and obstacles that decision-makers faced during the Great Depression, the lead-up to WW-II, and the conduct of that war as have these wonderful two volumes. Even though I know full well how these matters played out, it was fascinating to learn how they came to be, and to realize that their outcomes were by no means foreordained nor inevitable. It is said about travel: "Getting there is half the fun;" in that sense, Kennedy is a marvelous tourguide to history.
One minor quibble: In true scholarly fashion, Kennedy
identifies sources for his many assertions and quotations in
footnotes; only a few footnotes contain additional explanatory
material that adds to the story. I would have preferred that the
many footnotes that merely give sources had been made into end
notes, available to those who want to check them but not
taking space on the pages of the narrative.
Book Description
In the mid 1930s, North America's Great Plains faced one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in world history. Donald Worster's classic chronicle of the devastating years between 1929 and 1939 tells the story of the Dust Bowl in ecological as well as human terms. Now, twenty-five years after his book helped to define the new field of environmental history, Worster shares his more recent thoughts on the subject of the land and how humans interact with it. In a new afterword, he links the Dust Bowl to current political, economic and ecological issues--including the American livestock industry's exploitation of the Great Plains, and the on-going problem of desertification, which has now become a global phenomenon. He reflects on the state of the plains today and the threat of a new dustbowl. He outlines some solutions that have been proposed, such as "the Buffalo Commons," where deer, antelope, bison and elk would once more roam freely, and suggests that we may yet witness a Great Plains where native flora and fauna flourish while applied ecologists show farmers how to raise food on land modeled after the natural prairies that once existed.
Customer Reviews:
My favorite book about the Dust Bowl.......2007-10-16
Looking at the cover, this book seems as if it's going to be something really academic--and it is scholarly and knowledgeable--and it's never academic in the bad sense, in the boring sense.
I read this right after reading Timothy Egan's "The Worst Hard Time," and found this book's descriptions of the devastation caused by the 1930s Dust Bowl to be much more vivid and gripping, this book's facts to be much quirkier and more interesting, and this book's scope to feel much broader and more widely felt. With "The Worst Hard Time," I got the idea that the whole thing really only affected a handful of counties, which I knew was wrong, but with this book there was no denying just how epic the whole ordeal was.
I loved this book (despite its author's amusing tendency to quote Marx) and consider it to be perhaps the very best book I've read about the Dust Bowl--and I've read a few of them.
Some interesting history and ideas in a very dry context.......2007-04-13
In the midst of the Great Depression in the 1930's, the Great Plains states faced the additional hardship of one of the worst environmental disasters commonly known as the Dust Bowl. Traditionally grassland, the area was not well-suited to the kind of extensive farming that preceeded those years. And once the natural grass which held the soil together was gone and the regular cycle of drought hit, there was nothing to stop the wind from blowing it across the land or into huge dust storms that raged for weeks on end. History usually focuses only on the social and economic effects of the Dust Bowl, but Worster adds the environment into the mix and seeks to find the root cause of this man-made disaster. He opens with a quote from Karl Marx, and although he dismisses that in his newly added Afterword as mere bravado, it seems apparent throughout his writting that he's a Marxist in his beliefs. He places the blame on American culture and Capitalism - not on the people, but the culture that encourages and drives them to create bigger farms and use machinery that more effectively tills the land. He argues that inherent to American culture is this behavior of exploiting the land for profit and only through government intervention and control can we avoid this kind of disaster in the future.
I can agree that the greed of Capitalism is laid bare in this disaster and that the land is probably not suitable to the kind of exessive use that happens there. But I'm not convinced that his Socialist suggestions (which unfortunately are not offered in a very concise or summarized way) are the answer. He seems to dismiss and ignore the inherent problems in Socialism and it's failure to provide for the people under it's rule. Capitalism may not be perfect, but it taps into mankind's natural desire to better one's position through individual efforts, while Socialism in theory recognizes the brotherhood of mankind but fails to provide for even the basic needs of the people (even the author recognizes it is this Capitalist economy that provides food for most of the world). And his suggestions for population control or that the people in that area should go back to bare subsistence farming seems far-fetched. But at least the author is exploring new ideas (or probably just regurgitating old ones from the 60's and 70's), and for that I give him credit.
But while I found many aspects of the book interesting and insightful, overall it's pretty dry reading (pun intended). The statistics become a bit boring and make the book feel excessively academic. The lectures against the evils of American culture were tiresome, and I felt he had a very condescending attitude when discussing the people affected. And I would have enjoyed a better discussion on the natural ecology of the land and it's native plants and animals, which I think would have been more inspiring. But on a personal aside, the one thing that made me realize how boring the book was becoming for me was when I kept losing my place (I'd forget to put the bookmark back where I left off). But when I picked it up again I would read for several pages before I realized that wasn't actually where I left off before. It was like it didn't matter where I read - it all kinda flowed together.
BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPE, UGLY ECONOMICS.......2006-06-25
In the mid thirties, drought and land mismanagement created huge dust storms over the plains known as 'black blizzards'. Worster tells us something about them in the first chapter, but reserves most of his ink describing the economic and social conditions that allowed the disaster to happen. I disagree fully with his arguments, and also think he spent too much time on Oklahoma and Kansas. The storms affected a much wider area than just Cimmaron county.
Worster is a Marxist who is upset that we have used our land in this country to produce so much. He sees the creation of wealth as an evil to be controlled, if not eliminated. Our disregard for ecology created the dust bowl, he says, and will likely bring another in the future. Certainly he is right that some destructive farming practices made the drought situation worse. But are we not the most productive agricultural nation on earth? Clearly our capitalist system has proved its worth, on the farm as elsewhere. In the 70's, another drought period, we even fed the Russians, who were operating under a socialist, marxist inspired economy. Worster seems to yearn for a simpler time, a time when all was not caught up in the rat race. I believe we can all understand and even sympathize with this. But it is no excuse for lousy economics.
Book Review: "Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s" .......2006-04-10
In "Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s" (Oxford University Press: New York, 1979) Donald Worster contends that the destruction of the southern plains was one of the most terrible ecological disasters in human history. Human beings, not nature, heaven, or hell, created this ecological tragedy. It was the result of unbridled greed and arrogance on the part of expansion driven Americans and their erroneous assumptions about soil, plants, and rain. According to Worster, the dust bowl happened because "the system" worked, not because it failed. Farmers of the Great Plains were a varied group, they were not merely families that worked the land and grew crops. They were individuals and corporations who, because of greed and an unyielding attitude, set out to break the land and force it to provide the lifestyle they chose. They were successful in their first goal; they did indeed break the land. The overwhelming failure and huge cost of the second goal are the main topics of the book, Dust Bowl.
The dust bowl was one of "the three worst ecological blunders in history" (4). The other two were the deforestation of China 's uplands circa 3000 BC, and the destruction of Mediterranean vegetation by livestock. China 's deforestation produced centuries of silting and flooding. The ruin of Mediterranean flora left once fertile lands eroded and impoverished. However, the big difference between the dust bowl and the other disasters is that the dust bowl took only fifty years to achieve (4). Robert Geiger, an associated press reporter from Denver , coined the term "dust bowl" after traveling "through the worst-hit part of the plains" (28). The irony of the label `dust bowl' is that while some thought the term was a satire on college football ("orange bowl", "rose bowl") Geiger was not referring to sports at all. He was not even referring to the ubiquitous sugar bowl. Geiger was recalling "the image of the plains pushed forth by another Denver man William Gilpin" who in the 1850s thought the continent itself was a "great fertile bowl rimmed by mountains, its concave interior destined to one day be the seat of civilization" (28).
Drought was a major contributing factor to the dust bowl. Worster defines "drought" as a relative term dependent on one's concept of "normal." Climatologists of the dust bowl era defined drought as precipitation deficiencies "of at least 15 percent of the historical mean" (11). The difference between "earth" and "dust" is that dirt is considered earth when it is in place growing food and offering humans a place on which to stand or build (12). Dust is when that same dirt is loose and becomes airborne (12-13). In the 1930s, once that dirt hit the air people in the dust bowl were on the look out for "black blizzards" and "sand blows." Black blizzards were dust storms, or "dusters," that rose off of the plains like a "long wall of muddy water as high as 7000 or 8000 feet" (14-15). These dusters were caused by a "polar continental air mass" that lifted the dirt high off the ground. Sometimes the black blizzards were attended by thunder and lightening storms, or worse an "eerie silence" (14). Sand blows were dust storms that were created by "low sirocco-like winds" that came from the southwest and caused sandy soils to form sand dunes (15).
In the novel The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck situated the Joad family in Sallisaw Oklahoma , on the Arkansas border about 400 miles east of Guymon and the panhandle dust center. The Joads had been evicted from their farm in what Steinbeck presumed to be the Oklahoma dust bowl. (In reality, that region of Oklahoma was not part of the actual dust bowl). It was greedy wheat farmers and suitcase farmers with combines and tractors that drove out people like the Joads (57). The homeless Joads migrated down Route 66 to California where they were abused and misused by a brutal agricultural system that exploited migrant workers. In some ways Steinbeck's novel confirms discoveries made by Paul Taylor and Carey McWilliams when they investigated the origins of the many displaced agricultural workers who arrived in California . Taylor's and McWilliams' research dovetails with Steinbeck's novel. In California there was no longer a working bond between the farmer and the land. The agriculture there was based on business, crops were a product to sell. By their own statements people in the agriculture business in California were not farmers, they were land companies. What surprised Taylor and McWilliams was that industrial farming was not taking place only in California , "it was spreading rapidly across the "flat midsections of the country as well" (57). "Migrants were fleeing not only drought, but the machine as well" (57). Ultimately, the Joads were displaced by avarice as much as they were by dirt and machines (56-63).
John Wesley Powell's plan for the Great Plains settlement was far different from the one that was eventually put into effect. Powell insisted that there was not enough rainfall for traditional farming in the region past the 100th meridian. He opposed the plan there for 160-acre homesteads. In Powell's report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States (1878), he proposed dividing the plains into 2,560-acre sections used for livestock. This provided homestead opportunities for only 1/16th as many families, and the proposal was soundly rejected by Congress (85-86). When Powel surveyed the area it was still "Indian country". The last "Indian culture" to evolve in the United States was known as the Plains Indians, and they came to symbolize all Indian cultures. En route to the Rio Grande Valley , Coronado came across the nomadic "Querecho" (Apaches). They had no riches and no towns. However two-hundred years later the "birth of the Plains Indians culture"..."came to symbolize for the entire world the aboriginal man" (76). It was the last culture to evolve. Around 1700 AD the Comanche appeared on the plains, stealing horses and taking over the buffalo hunting grounds. Later the Kiowas and the Sioux, and the Cheyenne and the Arapahos arrived on the Plains. These Indians came to symbolize all Indians because their migration had been difficult, they were warriors at heart, and Americans admired their rebel ways. The Plains Indians were admired also because they did not destroy nature. Worster says accusations of burning and over-hunting by the Plains Indians are "wild claims" and gives them no credence (77). The Plains Indians were successful in adapting to nature and not wasting resources. Sadly, by 1876 the Plains Indians had been completely conquered by the army (78).
The three mechanical innovations that caused the great plow-up were the tractor, the disk plow, and the combine. The tractor, especially the Reeves steam tractor, was transforming the plains as early as 1900 (90). The one-way disk plow, using concave plates set vertically on a beam left a "finely pulverized surface layer" and was commonly blamed for dust storms (91). Another innovation was the combined harvester-thresher a.k.a. the "combine." Wheat, in particular, lent itself to this type of farming. By the end of the twenties more than three-fourths of the farmers in the winter wheat section of the Plains owned a combine (91). "Essentially the great plow-up was the work of a generation of aggressive entrepreneurs, imbued with the values and world view of American agricultural capitalism" (214). The practice of utilizing combines and owning tracts of lands that were distant from one's home led absentee growers to be called "suitcase farmers" (93). Mechanized farming allowed speculators in the market to farm areas distant from where they lived. They tended their land a few weeks a year, at planting and harvesting time. These suitcase farmers were part of the greedy capitalist mentality that caused the dust bowl to begin with (152).
Russian thistles are commonly known as "tumbleweeds." This icon of the American West is originally from Europe . Russian thistles spread in the absence of climax soil, that is, they spread rapidly into bare soils (200). According to David B. Williams, a freelance natural history writer and author of A Naturalist's Guide to Canyon Country Canadian farmers tried to use young tumbleweeds as hay and silage for livestock in the 1930s. Mature tumbleweeds do not have many viable uses for humans or cattle, but they have been a poetic inspiration. Happy-go-lucky cowboys called themselves tumbleweeds because they roamed around the West unfettered. William S. Hart called his last film Tumbleweeds, Bob Nolan wrote a song titled "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds," and Tom K. Ryan created a comic strip named "Tumbleweed."
New Deal conservation was different from Progressive era conservation. The colorful characters of Progressive era conservation were Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, and Theodore Roosevelt. The history of the Progressives is one of natural reserves and government bureaucracies. The Progressives created the Forest Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the National Park Service. Struggles between utilitarians and preservationists (particularly the battle waged by Muir against Pinchot and his supporters over Hetch Hetchy) marked Progressive era conservation. New Deal conservation was "more questioning and more radical than that of the Progressives" (185). Progressives wanted to hold back lands from interests that would strip trees and minerals from the land and then move on to find other areas to exploit. The New Dealers of the 1930s saw a need for "agricultural conservation" but their sites were set on safeguarding privately owned land. New Deal conservationists were land-use planners. They viewed natural resource management as requiring long-term planning that included the needs of society combined with wise management of the environment. Unfortunately, preserving natural resources such as parks was submerged by ideas of the greater good achieved by building dams and reclaiming desert lands for farming. The idea was that resource management would provide flood control and aid dust bowl farmers by irrigating their lands. Populations on the Great Plains disadvantaged by the environmental and economic disasters of the 1930s embraced the idea of being saved by the New Deal conservationists (185-187).
The Future of the Great Plains , commissioned by President Roosevelt, made it clear that "inappropriate institutions and practices brought from humid part of the country" caused the dust bowl. Roosevelt instructed the committee not to delve into any broader economic analysis or recommendations such as resettlement outside the plains (193). Therefore, even though administrators had an opportunity to implement land-use planning and production limits, they did not. One reason long-term planning did not occur was that the men in charge, specifically Lewis Gray and Rexford Tugwell, were not daring and courageous conservationists. Instead, they were government workers and "problem-solvers" weighed down with the difficulties people faced due to the Depression (194-196). Even if men like Gray and Tugwell had the time or inclination to promote conservation, they faced a nation that "was not ready to hear about or support fundamental environmental reform" (196). Hugh Hammond Bennett, of the Soil Conservation Service, and the son of a North Carolina cotton planter was an expert in soils and agronomy. He worked to correct the misconception that soil was an inexhaustible resource. He acted in favor of soil conservation, and anticipated the theory of sheet erosion of soils. He worked out national programs for soil and water conservation and was one of the most listened-to soil alarmists that testified in front of Congress (212-213).
The significance of deep-well irrigation is that people in the agricultural business began using lands for crops in areas that would never have a renewable water source. The plains farmers and residents thought that water was the solution to their problems. Deep-well irrigation was one of the many ideas they had for irrigating the plains. They figured about 5000 of these wells at a cost of 1.75 million would do the trick (39). With the advent of advanced technology, deep-well irrigation pumped water out of the aquifers of the Great Plains . When engineers first began pumping out the water from reservoirs deep underground the supply was thought to be inexhaustible. By the time Worster wrote Dust Bowl the end was already in sight for aquifers such as the Ogallala. The Ogallala aquifer is the one that has allowed Haskell Kansas to support agriculture in places nature never intended crops to exist (234-235).
Comprehensive, but a bit dry.......2006-03-20
I had to read this book for my American history class. It is a very comprehensive and insightful book about the Dust Bowl, but in not the usual historical way. It looks deeply into the environmental roots of the Dust Bowl and has some great photographs, both ecological and social. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who i s into environmental history. (But I'm not really, so it might be a bit dry and boring for those who aren't.)
Customer Reviews:
Brother,can you spare a dime?..........2004-02-13
This is the first book I've read that is totally about the Great Depression.However,I have read all of Steinbeck's,Erskine Caldwell's and numerous by and about Woody Guthrie as well as many about Capone and other Gangsters.While these were all about the same period,they tended to zero in on specific ways of life,even though one aspect of the depression did not escape the effect of another.The black sharecroppers in the Deep South of Caldwell,the bootlegging,clubs and turf wars of Chicago of Capone and Ness,the Dust Bowl migrations of the Oakies of Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie give detailed insight of people living through these times but but each went on almost oblivous to each other.What Watkins has done is to deal with every
thing during the Depression and somewhat ties it all together. This is was no mean feat.
He leaned towards Government,Big Business ,Politics , Unions and other Organizations and shows how they were the source of the problems and in the final analysis had to be the solution. It was not the honest,hard working ,good,trusting majority of the people who suffered so much,that brought on this mess and they were sure helpless to correct it.As a matter of fact most of the systems prevented them by law and control from doing so.
Watkins gives most of the credit of getting things turned around to FDR and there is no doubt that he had to fight everyone to do it;in many cases his own party.This has often been the case in America from the times of Washington to Bush of today.Often the President stands alone and as Truman said "The buck stops here!" The great presidents had what it took to deal with the challenges of their times.The less great did not.
America was flat on its back and pulled itself up by its bootstraps without the help of any other country.In only a few years became strong enough to lead the charge to defeat the enemies in WWII.
The Commander of the Japanese Fleet that led the Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor said it all.."I fear all we have managed to do is to wake a sleeping giant." How right he was!
The book is well researched,well written,well organized with many excellent photographs.On top of that, it is easy reading--for a History book.
Subtle unsubstantiated bias.......2000-12-09
The pictures are plentiful and very helpful in this unbalanced overview of the Great Depression, the research and writing are admirable, but the tone shows a subtle and insidious bias in favor of unions, socialists and minorities. No where near enough attention is paid to the everyday struggle of people to simply survive. Watkins pays little attention to organized crime, bootlegging and petty thievery that raise the level of fear of all citizens during that period. Watkins also ignores the efforts made by many small, medium and large businesses help their employees get by, choosing instead to paint businesses as manifestations of the evils of capitalism. Far too emotional for a scholarly work.
A Wonderful Book.......1999-08-31
This is a wonderful book with oodles of photos! The best and most accessible history of the Great Depression I have ever seen.
Thorough, well researched, informative, thought provoking.......1998-05-15
T.H. Watkins takes the reader on a fascinating journey into life in America during the late 1920's and 1930's in his book "The Great Depression-America in the 1930's".Well-researched, thoroughly written, and graced with an astounding collection of photos that truly capture the pain and desperation of America at the time, this book belongs on the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in American history, politics, and societal behavior.
Millions of Americans who had been raised on the belief that hard work, discipline, and thrift would see them through were shell shocked by their sudden fall upon hard times-due of course to events largely out of their control. As never before, suddenly the adequacy of self-sufficiency and individualism (qualities inherent in the model of the "good American") were called into question, and with the forces of international economics, politics, growing industrial unionism, racism, adverse weather conditions, and historical fate combining to produce a bitter pill to swallow, it is easy to see why the 1930's was a time for some of the most angry, chaotic, and divergent politics ever.
As one would expect, the dealings of the Hoover and FDR administrations are given much mention in this book, but so too are many other locales of political activity. From Louisiana Senator Huey Long's bellicose populist calls to "share our wealth", to the concerted efforts of Midwest farmers in intimidating foreclosing bankers, to the fears expressed by world watching Republicans and Democrats alike that America was writing its own dangerous Bolshevik script-Watkins' book drives home the idea that the politics of this era was interesting not for its own sake or for its ideological diversity, but because there was a real sense of urgency and crisis-politics really did matter.
While the author examines the Great Depression through the eyes of many different types of people, including the world's most powerful businessmen and politicians, it is the stories! coming from the poverty stricken that are the most heartbreaking. One account told the story of a teacher in dirt poor Appalachia ordering a sickly thin girl to go home and get something to eat-only to hear from the girl that she couldn't, because it was her brother's turn to eat that day.
While the book is certainly full of stories depicting the hard times of the downtrodden and the ugly injustices that they endured (and also sometimes inflicted), there are also stories about struggling Americans who steadfastly never gave up, and retained their streak of gritty self-determination-even if it meant selling apples in New York or oranges in New Orleans for a nickel a piece to make ends meet. As I read of the hardships that Americans faced during the Great Depression, and their ways for coping with the tough times, I can't help but wonder how today's instant-gratification society-with all of its consumer debt and poor saving habits-would cope under similar adverse conditions. Watkins concludes his book with a tribute to the people of the Great Depression era, remarking that "if we shape our world half as well as the men and women of the 1930's, we will have gone a long way towards honoring our own obligation to the future."
Fine words from a fine historian and author.
Erich Overhultz, B.A., M.P.A. Florida Atlantic University EOverhultz@aol.com
Book Description
It's difficult today to imagine how America survived the Great Depression. Only through the stories of the common people who struggled during that era can we really understand how the nation endured. These are the people at the heart of Amity Shlaes's insightful and inspiring history of one of the most crucial events of the twentieth century.
In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes, one of the nation's most respected economic commentators, offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. Rejecting the old emphasis on the New Deal, she turns to the neglected and moving stories of individual Americans, and shows how through brave leadership they helped establish the steadfast character we developed as a nation. Some of those figures were well known, at least in their day—Andrew Mellon, the Greenspan of the era; Sam Insull of Chicago, hounded as a scapegoat. But there were also unknowns: the Schechters, a family of butchers in Brooklyn who dealt a stunning blow to the New Deal; Bill W., who founded Alcoholics Anonymous in the name of showing that small communities could help themselves; and Father Divine, a black charismatic who steered his thousands of followers through the Depression by preaching a Gospel of Plenty.
Shlaes also traces the mounting agony of the New Dealers themselves as they discovered their errors. She shows how both Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt failed to understand the prosperity of the 1920s and heaped massive burdens on the country that more than offset the benefit of New Deal programs. The real question about the Depression, she argues, is not whether Roosevelt ended it with World War II. It is why the Depression lasted so long. From 1929 to 1940, federal intervention helped to make the Depression great—in part by forgetting the men and women who sought to help one another.
Authoritative, original, and utterly engrossing, The Forgotten Man offers an entirely new look at one of the most important periods in our history. Only when we know this history can we understand the strength of American character today.
Customer Reviews:
What the Forgotten Man Forgot.......2007-10-17
I didn't like it. I just read "Age of Betrayal" by Jack Beatty, "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin and this book back-to-back. Jack Beatty tries hard to persuade and digs deep into primary sources. Doris Kearns Goodwin takes the motif of a team of rivals and uses that vehicle to display the many facets of Lincoln's amiable personality in times of stress. Amity Shales divides her book into chapters for each of the years in the decade from 1930 to 1940. Her devotion to a quotation of William Graham Sumner is the supposed theme of the book, but that theme is missing throughout the entire book and only shows up at the beginning and the very end. She often makes statements of personal opinion without citation or foundation. At the very end of the book, she resorts to an attempt at poetry as opposed to historical-economic analysis. She states that once the Second World War started, "no one was wanted to serve more than the Forgotten Man". Clearly, she had no intent of being taken literally. But that's the problem with 80 % of this book. Why should an author purporting to tell the real story of the great depression take literary license to engage in metaphor and hyperbole ? As a statement of fact, her concluding remark is unsupportable. Her thesis is that the "Forgotten Man" is the tough individualist who always pulls himself up by the bootstraps and never accept alms. What historical information is there to support the proposition that the men most willing to serve in the Second World War were those who did not receive public benefits (education, medicine, housing, etc.) ? Answer: none. Don't let the "forgotten man" forget that he is not a "self-made" man if he went to public school or if his elderly parents are on Medicare. What seems to be forgotten is that the vast majority of us depend upon receipt of public benefits at one point or another in our lives.
An alternate history of the New Deal.......2007-10-11
While reading Amity Shlaes' alternate history of the New Deal, it becomes clear that our modern political system was born, with fits and starts, during the 1930's. The federal power-grab, which ensued and which continued for the next 50 years, was born of a particular response to the financial crisis. But, what Shlaes makes clear, is that that response was not inevitable, and it could have been very different.
Shlaes examines the response to the Great Depression in three phases.
1. The attraction to centralized, Soviet-style control of all facets of human life, especially the economy (symbolized by Tugwell)
2. The systematic war against successful companies (Commonwealth & Southern) and successful capitalists (symbolized by Mellon)
3. And, the appearance of renegade figures who doubted the wisdom -- and practicality! -- of the New Deal and who were willing to fight FDR (symbolized by Willkie)
Instead of presenting the New Deal as a success, which saved American capitalism, Shlaes points out how FDR and his lieutenants prolonged the suffering of a financial crisis. Instead of lasting a "quarter of an hour," it lasted 10 years. As economists, FDR and the "brain trusters" were wildly unpredictable and unsuccessful. In fact, it is shocking to read a book, which has painted FDR so completely out of control of the country. The "charming" FDR of the Fireside Chats is nowhere to been in Shlaes' book. FDR comes off much more feckless and villainous.
Finally, the portrait painted of Wendell Willkie truly depicts him as an American hero. It is amazing how he has disappeared from the history books.
Roosevelt Reviewed.......2007-10-11
An extremely interesting and informative treatise on the all too negative effects the Roosevelt Administration's socialist policies have had on our country.
The Forgotton Man.......2007-10-10
Excellent. Well written and some interesting linkages of FDR with Durranty and Hiss. Exposes the errors the NYTIMES made in assessing Stalin and his crimes against humanity.
Great insight into the modern view of the depression.......2007-10-07
This book provides a great treatment of the depression, not the sorry politically inspired tale we are given in school. Our knowledge of the great depression is highly injected with partisanship and villainy. Shlaes does a good job of beginning the job of disseminating the real story of the great depression. She focuses not only on the poor and rich, but the middle class, the forgotten man, who helped bring the rest of the country out of the depression. In this sense, the book is an enlightening read because it goes beyond the borders of those have laid claim to the depression and its consequences. It shows how the policies of the new dealers actually prolonged the effects of the depression, and the human costs associated with their failures. Schlaes also does a great job of illustrating how hubris can lead governments to cause human suffering in an effort to maintain their image. All in all, this was a great book, worthy of your interest.
Average customer rating:
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Going It Alone: Fargo Grapples with the Great Depression
David B Danbom
Manufacturer: Minnesota Historical Society Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Depression
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General
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General
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General
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North Dakota
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Social History
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ASIN: 0873515463 |
Book Description
In 1930 Fargo was a winner in a region where winning came hard. As the commercial center for the vast, sparsely settled Northern Plains, it grew even during the Depression, attracting hopeful entrepreneurs off the farm. In Going It Alone, historian David B. Danbom shows how the city struggled to survive problems it could not solve by itself. A critical complement to Depression histories focused on federal policies and programs, this study demonstrates how Washington’s initiatives for relief played out in a community of people born into a steadfast culture of self-sufficiency and independence.
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- Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir
- What is WebSphere? Java, J2EE, Portal and Beyond! (Demystifying IBM's Middle Tier Technology, Vol. 1)
- WILD ICE
- Windows Vista(TM) Resource Kit
- 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
- A History of Greece (Works in Ancient Philosophy)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Take Me Tonight
- I Cherish You: Words of Wisdom from His Needs, Her Needs
- A Guidebook for Teaching Biology
- Clusters of Atoms and Molecules II: Solvation and Chemistry of Free Clusters, and Embedded, Supporte
- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
- History: Fiction or Science
- Fancy Mice
- 1,000 Type Treatments: From Script to Serif, Letterforms Used to Perfection
- After the World Trade Center: Rethinking New York City
- Plantago: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDY
Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War
Suite Francaise
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
The Echo Maker: A Novel
