Book Description
The definitive and rollicking story of one of the best, and one of the wackiest, teams of all time, during one of the most vital eras in baseball.
With The Gashouse Gang, John Heidenry delivers the definitive account of one the greatest and most colorful baseball teams of all times, the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, filled with larger-than-life baseball personalities like Branch Rickey, Leo Durocher, Pepper Martin, Casey Stengel, Satchel Paige, Frankie Frisch, and--especially--the eccentric good ol' boy and great pitcher Dizzy Dean and his brother Paul.
The year 1934 marked the lowest point of the Great Depression, when the U.S. went off the gold standard, banks collapsed by the score, and millions of Americans were out of work. Epic baseball feats offered welcome relief from the hardships of daily life. The Gashouse Gang, the brilliant culmination of a dream by its general manager, Branch Rickey, the first to envision a farm system that would acquire and "educate" young players in the art of baseball, was adored by the nation, who saw itself--scruffy, proud, and unbeatable--in the Gang.
Based on original research and told in entertaining narrative style, The Gashouse Gang brings a bygone era and a cast full of vivid personalities to life and unearths a treasure trove of baseball lore that will delight any fan of the great American pastime.
Customer Reviews:
Baseball lover's only!.......2007-09-23
Baseball in times long passed was a very different game, but like today there were some really wild characters to mke the game all the more interesting. The 1934 Cardinals, "The Gashouse Gang" were an exciting, odd collection of great ball payers who played for the love of the game in a way we wish today's players did.
If you love baseball you won't be able to put this down, and even if you don't it will be too intriquing to stop reading once you start. Well written, well researched and as entertaining as anything I've read this season. Highly reccommended!
The Gashouse Gang Personalities.......2007-09-15
This book climbs to the top wrung of my baseball ladder. Rather than a statistical or play-by-play book so common in baseball pages, this features personality development of some of the wackiest players of all time. Learn that Ducky Joe should have been Mean Joe, that Leo the Lip couldn't handle relationships, or that Dizzy Dean was really Jerome or Jay or Hanna or Herman, maybe that he was from Arkansas or Oklahoma or Texas -- well, you get it.
This book captures the thrill of a season and the joy of a team effort. It really makes you think of the Oakland Athletics of the Catfish days.
Just one observation: John Heidenry missed the point of the moniker, "Gashouse Gang." He can't figure out where it came from. He even ponders how "Gas Tank" became "Gashouse." During that day, electricity was provided by manufactured gas plants, sometimes called "witch's brew." The main structure was known as the "gashouse." The working class fellows who toiled away in those dirty gashouses were known as "the gashouse gangs." They cursed, they played dirty and hilarious tricks on each other, they had great and sour dispositions -- necessary to get through the tough days, and yes, their clothes were always filthy. Sound like the beloved Gashouse Gang?
Snag this book, and you will enjoy several hours of quiet time, if you can block out your own laughter.
Me 'n' Paul.......2007-09-02
In baseball, 1934 was a year to remember, a year in which the Saint Louis Cardinals, a scruffy team of misfits and malcontents, came from almost the graveyard to win the National League pennant, and then the World Series. While we learn a tremendous amount about the Cardinals, and especially the Dean brothers, Dizzy and Paul, there are others about whom we receive thumbnail biographies. Most importantly, Branch Rickey is focused upon for much of the early part of the book, and just reading about this remarkable man is sufficient reason to study this book. Other famous players make cameo appearances: Babe Ruth, Mel Otto, Mickey Cochrane, Leo Durocher, and Pie Traynor, with whom I was once priviledged to have an extensive conversation about baseball when I was in college. I also remember listening to Dizzy on the television announcing(?) games and talking about all kinds of extraneous subjects other than the game he was supposed to be calling. Of course, Dizzy is the centerpiece of this book, and he strides through it like a colossus. He did things then that would not be tolerated by a basseball organization today, and perhaps we are the pooorer for not having men such as him (and Curt Flood)to challenge what is considered the "right" way to act as a porfessional ball player. He's gone, and so are all of those famous old-timers, and the world misses them!
Great Father's Day gift.......2007-07-12
I gave this book to my 60 year old father for Father's Day. He hasn't read a book in years but is a huge baseball fan. He loved the book and stayed up late into the night reading it. Great for a Cardinals or baseball fan!
RICK SHAQ GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "73 YEARS AFTER WINNING THE WORLD SERIES "THE GASHOUSE GANG" ST LOUIS CARDINALS HAVE A BOOK!".......2007-06-13
Before I give you the details of this book, let me save some people their valuable time, by telling you who this book would appeal to! Old School Baseball fanatics, "Baseball Historians", Saint Louis Cardinal fans. If you think the designated hitter rule is good for baseball this book isn't for you.
73 years after the famous (To the above listed people.) Saint Louis Cardinals, hereafter known as "The Gashouse Gang", won the World Series, they have had an excellent book released on their exploits and accomplishments. As a self-acclaimed baseball fanatic, some of the statistics, and idiosyncrasies, I discovered in this book about famous old time players that I already knew about, were both interesting and amusing. The author's writing style is not anything you'll remember as out of the ordinary, since so much of the meat of the book, you can tell is repeated from old newspaper articles. But the detailed, meticulous, research should be applauded. As I've mentioned in my earlier reviews, I've read literally hundreds of baseball books, and memorized half the "Encyclopedia Of Baseball" when I was 10 years old, yet I learned even more details and amusing personality "quirks" of some of the old-time stars. I of course already knew that Dizzy Dean was a great pitcher, in the Hall Of Fame, and the last National League pitcher to win 30 games. What I didn't know, but learned here, was the absolute bottom of the barrel poverty he came from in the historically famous "dust bowl"! I knew he was a "wacky" character, but I didn't know, it went to the extent of him literally being the Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali, of the baseball world in the 1930's, before there was an Ali. I didn't know that Dizzy held out and boycotted games, in a demand for an increased contract, in the middle of the season. I also got to learn much more about the great Ducky Medwick, (The last National League Player to win the Triple Crown 70 years ago.) who was one of my dear departed Mother's favorite players, when he later played on the Brooklyn Dodgers. I never knew he was such a New Jersey, street fighting, chip on the shoulder, ready to fight anyone, including his own teammates, type of guy! I learned more than I ever had known about what led up to one of the biggest name trades in baseball history, Rogers Hornsby for Frankie Frisch. The detailed background on Branch Rickey, before his famous relationship with Jackie Robinson, was also expertly detailed. The almost blow by blow reporting on the 1934 World Series between the Gashouse Gang and the star studded Detroit Tigers makes you feel like you were there. I could go on and on, but like I said in my opening sentences, these facts, that are exciting and educational to me, would only be exciting to the type of people I described in my opening.
Amazon.com
You can think of Freedom from Fear as the academic's version of The Greatest Generation: like Tom Brokaw, Stanford history professor David M. Kennedy focuses on the years of the Great Depression and the Second World War and how the American people coped with those events. But there the similarities end--and, in terms of the differences, one might begin by noting that the historian's account is over twice the size of the journalist's.
Whereas Brokaw made use of extensive interviews, Kennedy relies on published accounts and primary sources, all meticulously footnoted. This academic rigor, however, does not render the book dull--far from it. Certainly the subject matter is interesting enough in its own right, but Kennedy offers attention-grabbing turns of phrase on nearly every page. He also unleashes some convention-shattering theses, such as his revelation that "the most responsible students of the events of 1929 have been unable to demonstrate an appreciable cause-and-effect linkage between the Crash and the Depression" and his subsequent argument that, although it made order out of chaos, the New Deal did not reverse the Depression--that, he says, was the war's doing. All in all, Freedom from Fear compares favorably to its companions in the multivolume Oxford History of the United States in both its comprehensive heft and its vivid readability. --Ron Hogan
Book Description
Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. Freedom From Fear tells the story of how Americans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities. The Depression was both a disaster and an opportunity. As David Kennedy vividly demonstrates, the economic crisis of the 1930s was far more than a simple reaction to the alleged excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before 1929, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom and bust cycles, wastefully consuming capital and inflicting untold misery on city and countryside alike. Nor was the fabled prosperity of the 1920s as uniformly shared as legend portrays. Countless Americans, especially if they were farmers, African Americans, or recent immigrants, eked out thread bare lives on the margins of national life. For them, the Depression was but another of the ordeals of fear and insecurity with which they were sadly familiar. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal wrung from the trauma of the 1930s a lasting legacy of economic and social reform, including the Social Security Act, new banking and financial laws, regulatory legislation, and new opportunities for organized labor. Taken together, those reforms gave a measure of security to millions of Americans who had never had much of it, and with it a fresh sense of having a stake in their country. Freedom From Fear tells the story of the New Deal's achievements, without slighting its shortcomings, contradictions, and failures. It is a story rich in drama and peopled with unforgettable personalities, including the incandescent but enigmatic figure of Roosevelt himself. Even as the New Deal was coping with the Depression, a still more fearsome menace was developing abroad--Hitler's thirst for war in Europe, coupled with the imperial ambitions of Japan in Asia. The same generation of Americans who battled the Depression eventually had to shoulder arms in another conflict that wreaked world wide destruction, ushered in the nuclear age, and forever changed their own way of life and their country's relationship to the rest of the world. Freedom From Fear explains how the nation agonized over its role in World War II, how it fought the war, why the United States won, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could. Freedom From Fear is a comprehensive and colorful account of the most convulsive period in American history, excepting only the Civil War--a period that formed the crucible in which modern America was formed. The Oxford History of the United States The Atlantic Monthly has praised The Oxford History of the United States as "the most distinguished series in American historical scholarship," a series that "synthesizes a generation's worth of historical inquiry and knowledge into one literally state-of-the-art book. Who touches these books touches a profession." Conceived under the general editorship of one of the leading American historians of our time, C. Vann Woodward, The Oxford History of the United States blends social, political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military history into coherent and vividly written narrative. Previous volumes are Robert Middlekauff's The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution; James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (which won a Pulitzer Prize and was a New York Times Best Seller); and James T. Patterson's Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974 (which won a Bancroft Prize).
Customer Reviews:
Flawed History.......2007-10-06
David Kennedy's "Freedom from Fear" is a very uneven read. It is as if the section on the Depression was written by Kennedy and the section on WWII was assigned to a graduate assistant. The Depression segment is well enough done. It contains quite a bit of primary research, though Mr. Kennedy seems to have a political axe to grind.
Personally, I find it offensive when someone who claims to be a historian writes history and adds his own conclusions and value judgments. I'd rather add my own after hearing the history as plain as possible.
Though the first section of the book is good, it lacks good flow. The second section (WWII) is little more than an overview of other more complete histories. I really expected to hear more about "The American People in Depression and War". Instead we have a summary of various battles in the Pacific and in Europe. One chapter is spent on the home front which can be summarized with the benign comment that the American public had more luxuries than any time previously.
Mr. Kennedy did not fall into the trap of accusing Roosevelt of knowing of the proposed attack on Pearl Harbor, but he did get pulled into name calling when referring to Douglas MacArthur. His reference to "Dugout Doug" is unworthy of an accurate historian. Whatever MacArthur's personal failings and/or ego problems, he was fearless in battle. He was awarded 13 decorations for heroism, most of them in WWI. MacArthur's total campaign from Australia through the Phillipines was less costly in terms of casualties than the single European "Battle of the Bulge". Kennedy was more kind to another great ego, George Patton.
While an earlier book of Mr. Kennedy's was considered for the Pulitzer Prize, there is no danger of this book being seriously considered for the prize. I would suggest there are far better and more politically neutral histories available that cover this period, though possibly not in one volume.
you need much time but at the end you will know definitely more about it.......2007-09-13
It begins with a description of FDR, and his wife.
Many topics are unvaluable for a foreigner; you can't grasp what was the big depression unless you read this book.
I can regret there isn't much about Italy and Italians in Usa; well, some topics are more interesting, from a domestic point of view.
It makes you hungrier to know more about this period, like every good book of history should do; the bibliografy is very exaustive.
Informative AND Entertaining.......2007-08-05
I'm a scholar (in philosophy), but I just don't know enough about American History. This book filled in a nice chunk for me. It's well written and easy to understand. It's also quite entertaining. Kennedy makes judgments about the personality of the people involved, which brings them to life. He's a bit hard on certain figures (eg MacArthur), but somehow that comes off as refreshing. There isn't a lot of hero worship here. Expect an honest account of what happened and some speculation on why, both from Kennedy and from his sources.
The book is well researched, so if you want to follow up on this overview of two of the most critical decades in U.S. history, you will have the resources to do so.
I plan to look for more books by this author, as he brings history alive in a way few writers do.
Superb Depression and WWII History.......2007-07-18
Born in 1934 I have a permanent impression of the Depression and War years. Fear of not enough to sustain us during the Depression. Maturity or education not required. I do not agree with all of Mr. Kennedy's points but, in general, the book paints an accurate picture of the American People in vivid colors. A must read compare and contrast to America of the 21st Century.
Amazing book through and through.......2007-07-08
This book is HUGE but a great read. It won the Pulitizer Prize and it is obvious why. Not only is it thoroughly researched but it is an easy read. The author's writing flows and he really brings the period to life. I highly recommend this for historians, history buffs, and anyone else.
Average customer rating:
- Well written, high level look at FDR's later Years
- No Ordinary Viewpoint
- Extrordinary Leaders for "No Ordinary Time"
- Not my type of book
- A glimpse of my grandparents
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No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
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ASIN: 0671642405 |
Amazon.com
A compelling chronicle of a nation and its leaders during the period when modern America was created. With an uncanny feel for detail and a novelist's grasp of drama and depth, Doris Kearns Goodwin brilliantly narrates the interrelationship between the inner workings of the Roosevelt White House and the destiny of the United States. Goodwin paints a comprehensive, intimate portrait that fills in a historical gap in the story of our nation under the Roosevelts.
Book Description
No Ordinary Time is a monumental work, a brilliantly conceived chronicle of one of the most vibrant and revolutionary periods in the history of the United States. With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin masterfully weaves together a striking number of story lines--Eleanor and Franklin's marriage and remarkable partnership, Eleanor's life as First Lady, and FDR's White House and its impact on America as well as on a world at war. Goodwin effectively melds these details and stories into an unforgettable and intimate portrait of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and of the time during which a new, modern America was born.
Customer Reviews:
Well written, high level look at FDR's later Years.......2007-09-23
Having read many of the reviews written here, I think that it is important to first state that I am very conservative both economically and politically. Having said that, I want to make sure that it is understood that I am not judging the FDR Presidency, just this book.
This is my first real historical look at this time frame in American history and I felt that this book was a very good start from which to look into other avenues of interest during the war years. It is important to keep in mind that the earlier FDR years do not come into the focus of this work. This would not be a good book to judge FDR and the New Deal. It sticks with the years 1940 until FDR's death in 1945.
The book is well written and easy to read. It definitely lacks an in depth look at the "whys" of the FDR decision process. I would have liked to have learned more about the actual war decisions, but in reading the subthe title of the book, it is clear that the focus is about the homefront, not necessarily the war efforts abroad. The internal fighting and family relationships are discussed at length. Eleanor is given a front and center position in this work. I really would have liked to see more of FDR and how the decisions for various strategies were found.
There is a liberal bias to the book, but maybe that's my conservative stance showing. Nothing is mentioned in the book other than two sentences about Vice President Wallace. FDR is made to be a Superman, when it could have been read as FDR was merely a dictator that was elected. Without the effect of the decision process, the impression is that all decisions were FDR's alone. And while that may have been the case, the book never clearly states the way many of these ideas came to pass. This book leaves me the impression that much of FDR's time was spent polling the public and then fitting that knowledge into a decision.
So yes the book does have weaknesses in my opinion. But the strength of the book is the look at FDR the person. He was a solitary figure that needed a strong group of friends to humor him and help him through a truly horrific time in American history. His family life was a mess - he and Eleanor going in different directions with the purpose of staying apart. But the main thing I took from this work was that FDR gave the country hope. He never said quit, no matter the odds or obstacles. Was he a great President? This book is a very small piece of that puzzle.
No Ordinary Viewpoint.......2007-09-03
This was a very enjoyable and well written historical account of America during World War II, through the prism of the relationship between Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Goodwin's great strength, it seems to me, is to find a really refreshing angle to look at a well documented subject, often by examining the subject's most important personal relationships. She did the same thing in her Lincoln book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by examining the way Lincoln put together a strong cabinet, while still remaining a strong executive.
In this book she focuses on the Roosevelts during World War II, as FDR rallied a totally unprepared nation to become, first the arsenal of democracy, and then to enter the war against both Germany and Japan.
From my point of view I would have preferred more Franklin and less Eleanor. Ms. Goodwin notes several critics dismissing Eleanor as a meddling nag, and at times the criticism has merit. Franklin's demeanor, whether he is holding court at press conferences or White House cocktail hours, is much more enjoyable to be around. And you do, thanks to the lively writing, have a "you are there" feeling throughout this book.
Extrordinary Leaders for "No Ordinary Time".......2007-08-09
I loved this book. In it, Kearns-Goodwin recreates the time frame 1939-1945 like no other book I have read. The Roosevelts, long in power and struggling to overcome personal/physical difficulties, rise to the occasion like few leaders before them. Both children of privilege, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt took on their personal demons (his polio and her, at first, paralyzing shyness) to save the nation. Already dealing with the Great Depression, they were the public face of the war effort. How easy it would have been for FDR to overreach his power (in both the Depression and WWII). Although he was restricted by an isolationist Congress before the attack on Pearl Harbor,he persuaded Congress to ok Lend-Lease, and developed a plan with Churchill (and later Stalin) that eventually led to total victory. While he made some mistakes (internment of Japanese Americans, for example), his optimistic and winning public style balanced nicely with a keen understanding of the power he wielded. Eleanor, for her part, became the paralyzed president's spokesman around the world and at home. She also pushed domestic policy in a way that kept things like civil rights, help for the poor and needy, and better working conditions for labor on the front burner despite the efforts to win the war. Kearns-Goodwin covers it all, including the personal struggles of the First Couple. After it all, they emerge as extraordinary leaders for "no ordinary time". Few have equaled them before or since.
Not my type of book .......2007-06-29
Packed with information on every aspect of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt during the WWII timeframe, this book is a history lovers dream. Unfortunately, I am no history lover. I became glossy-eyed when fine details were being mentioned about everyday activities. I felt that the book strayed from the main story and gave too much supporting detail. Yet, as is with all of the history books that I marginally enjoy, I learned quite a bit of information that I would never have gained otherwise. I was amazed to learn about how separate the Roosevelt's actually were as a couple and FDR's continued relationship with Lucy Rutherford. I also gained insight into how much Eleanor helped to spur the rights for blacks and women with her forward thinking. Eleanor and Franklin's separation as a couple was shadowed by their strength in bringing a nation out of depression and forming our current business environment. I was also surprised to see the extent in which Franklin relaxed. There wasn't a chapter where Franklin didn't either drive around Hyde Park, cruise on the Potomac, or spend time in his "Little White House" in Warm Springs. This was a man who knew what taking it easy was all about.
A glimpse of my grandparents.......2007-06-09
I am a college student. Before reading this book I barely knew who FDR was, let alone why his terms in office were so important. I traveled to Hawaii shortly after reading this book to visit Pearl Harbor because I was so moved by the book. I feel like I understand my grandparents generation a little better now and truly want to thank them for all they have done.
Overall, a terrific read. The author did a wonderful job of sharing the unique relationship between FDR and Churhill. I was also impressed with the author's knowledge of the homefront, instead of just all of the famous battles. Everyone should read this book.
Customer Reviews:
Benchmark Study of the Causes of the Great Depression.......2004-05-23
This book is an outstanding, thorough analysis of the Great Depression. Indeed, it still stands as the best economcis book on the Great Depression. Kindleberger was a great economist in his time (check out his other works.
Kindleberger explains that the reason for the Depression was a lack of a stable international economic structure. In other words, the financial structure we enjoy today simply did not exist at the time.
The financial world used a disastrous gold standard - and this book describes why it was a disaster. Great Britain played in important role in the gold standar disaster. Then when the depression hit, Great Britain quickly dumped the gold standard - hypocrosy - and faired the best. Herbert Hoover rigidly stick to the gold standard. FDR dumped it once becoming president, and it helped bring about a mild recovery. Indeed, recovery offically began in 1934. FDR had taken power in early 1933. The mild economic expansion continued in 1935, 1936.
But a full recovery from the great depths of the Great Depression did not occur until the massive spending of World War II. Why did it take so long? There simply was no financial structure in place to exact a powerful enough of a force on the global financial system. Great Britain had abdicated the leadership role and the United States was yet unwilling to assume that role. Nations turned inward (and I would add that countries that devalued quickly faired best).
The international financial system was unstable unless some country or major economic force acted upon it. Pure laissez-faire economics, therefore, is dangerous.
It was not until economic activity was massively ramped up for World War II through deficit spending in the United States that the American economy pulled itself out of the depression. Congress was unwilling to take such dramatic steps before that, and Roosevelt was not completely sold on Keynseyian economics. He was a balanced budget, laissez-faire man (with basic progressive regulations) before the disaster of the Great Depression. The result is that Roosevelt ended the worsening of the depression and brought about a mild recovery, but the economic system was not yet structured to bring about the needed stronger measures.
Macroeconomics had not yet been developed. Keynes General Theory only came out in the mid-1930's, and then it was largely unknown. Friedman would not develop his monetary theory until well after the Great Depression had ended.
In retrospect, mistakes were made. Roosevelt cut off his own stimulus spending in 1937, being of a conservative economic bias, and it led to the Roosevelt Recession on 1937.
The book goes into detail in explaining many variables of the economic system. However, the times were what they were; a stable economic system, with active economic controls, did not exist. It was, ultimately a period of experimentation, and this book tells you what was learned.
The book probably appeals most to teachers, researchers and students, but anyone interested in a thorough economic explanation of the Great Depression will like this book. It would help if the reader had a basic understanding of macroeconomics.
The book is not the only explanation of the Great Depression, nor pretends to be, but is a highly valid one and should be considered by anyone seriously interested in the subject. I would supplement this book with David Kennedy's "Freedom from Fear," which summarizes much of the research into the causes of the Great Depression and partially revives the reputation of Hoover.
This book is a classic for the subject.
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!
Amazon.com
The late 1930s and early 1940s introduced to California culture some of the features that still characterize it today, at least in the view of outsiders to the Golden State: surfing, drive-in movie theaters, barbecues, motels, polo shirts, and recreational vehicles. The period brought equally enduring but less superficial changes, too: advances and setbacks alike in race relations, resource management, urban development, and transportation. Kevin Starr continues his multivolume history of California with this deeply learned, always fascinating account of California at the dawn of the modern age, with a cast of characters ranging from the Native American hermit Fig Tree John to violinist Yehudi Menuhin and hardboiled-fiction master Raymond Chandler.
Book Description
The fifth volume in Starr's classic history of California, The Dream Endures shows how Californians rebounded from the Great Depression to emerge in the 1930s into what is now known as "the good life." Starr illustrates the ways the good life prospered in California--in film, fiction, leisure, and architecture. Starr looks at the newly important places where Californians lived out this sunny lifestyle: areas like Los Angeles (where Hollywood lived), Palm Springs (where Hollywood vacationed), San Diego (where the Navy went), the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena (where Einstein changed his view of the universe), and college towns like Berkeley. "In this, more than any other of Starr's monumental California histories, we see the stirrings of uniqueness in the social and cultural evolution of California. Starr's theme is relevant to all of America and the national destiny."--Neil Morgan, San Diego Union-Tribune "Enormously sensitive and moving. Social and cultural history doesn't get any better."--San Francisco Chronicle "In his monumental continuing study of California, Kevin Starr belongs in the company of the best."--Herbert Gold, Los Angeles Times Book Review
Customer Reviews:
More of the same, which is a good thing.......2005-10-11
If you've read any of Dr. Starr's California histories, you've got the idea. Generally they're excellent. And if you've read SEVERAL of Dr. Starr's California histories, you'll undoubtedly notice that he has his favorite subjects: Colleges and universities, churches and institutional architecture, preferably Gothic or Spanish Revival. Being a transplanted East Coaster, I like this kind of thing, but I can also see where a dedicated Westie might find it tedious and oh so dry. All of these books come down to basically the same thing: History of California institutions from an Ivy League perspective. Imagine if Henry Adams had lived another 80 years and had written a history of California.
Key Los Angeles History.......2000-06-19
A great introduction to So Cal history with a comprehensive reviw of the whole cultural and historical landscape. Just as important, the writing is quick and entertaining.
Amazon.com
The Great Depression struck California hard, just as it did countless other states and nations. It also helped remake California, writes Kevin Starr in this fourth installment of his multivolume history of the state. The Depression brought a massive influx of hopeful refugees to California from elsewhere in the United States, including 300,000 new agricultural workers--the people of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. These newcomers worked in the fields and stores for fifteen cents an hour while Hollywood made movies about their lot, Woody Guthrie sang songs about them, and union organizers tried hard to make a labor-based revolution. The fortunes of these "Okies" is just one of the sweeping topics that Starr, a fine writer and imaginative chronicler, takes on in this book.
Book Description
California, Wallace Stegner observed, is like the rest of the United States, only more so. Indeed, the Golden State has always seemed to be a place where the hopes and fears of the American dream have been played out in a bigger and bolder way. And no one has done more to capture this epic story than Kevin Starr, in his acclaimed series of gripping social and cultural histories. Now Starr carries his account into the 1930s, when the political extremes that threatened so much of the Depression-ravaged world--fascism and communism--loomed large across the California landscape. In Endangered Dreams, Starr paints a portrait that is both detailed and panoramic, offering a vivid look at the personalities and events that shaped a decade of explosive tension. He begins with the rise of radicalism on the Pacific Coast, which erupted when the Great Depression swept over California in the 1930s. Starr captures the triumphs and tumult of the great agricultural strikes in the Imperial Valley, the San Joaquin Valley, Stockton, and Salinas, identifying the crucial role played by Communist organizers; he also shows how, after some successes, the Communists disbanded their unions on direct orders of the Comintern in 1935. The highpoint of social conflict, however, was 1934, the year of the coastwide maritime strike, and here Starr's narrative talents are at their best, as he brings to life the astonishing general strike that took control of San Francisco, where workers led by charismatic longshoreman Harry Bridges mounted the barricades to stand off National Guardsmen. That same year socialist Upton Sinclair won the Democratic nomination for governor, and he launched his dramatic End Poverty in California (EPIC) campaign. In the end, however, these challenges galvanized the Right in a corporate, legal, and vigilante counterattack that crushed both organized labor and Sinclair. And yet, the Depression also brought out the finest in Californians: state Democrats fought for a local New Deal; California natives helped care for more than a million impoverished migrants through public and private programs; artists movingly documented the impact of the Depression; and an unprecedented program of public works (capped by the Golden Gate Bridge) made the California we know today possible. In capturing the powerful forces that swept the state during the 1930s--radicalism, repression, construction, and artistic expression--Starr weaves an insightful analysis into his narrative fabric. Out of a shattered decade of economic and social dislocation, he constructs a coherent whole and a mirror for understanding our own time.
Customer Reviews:
Californians, Learn Your State's History.......2003-09-17
Kevin Starr's continuing work on the history of California since 1850 continues to impress me and fill me with interesting and useful knowledge about the state. Being a resident of the state, it is relatively easy for me to keep following the thread and the meaning of names and locations. I can imagine this would be somewhat more difficult for readers not as familiar with our state. The story of the waterfront strikes in San Francisco and the farming/migrant/labor issues of the 1930s are very compelling and should be easily understood by readers regardless of where they are from. The issues dealing with our water supply and other water management issues as well as those dealing with large public works within the state, can pose a bigger challenge for those readers.
As with his other volumes, Mr. Starr doesn't just give us straight-ahead, factual history. In my view, he is especially good at giving incidental stories about some of the players involved in a way that keeps the reader more interested. Immediately after finishing the book I went to the internet to find out more about people like photographer Dorothea Lange and the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. That is what I ask of books like these: that they teach me about things I don't know much about and that they cause me to follow up and learn more about some of the topics within the book.
One learns reading this particular volume that the current quirkiness of California (governor recalls, liberalism, social diversity) is not something that just developed in the 1970s. We had recall movements back in the 1930s as well and some ugliness comes through regarding racism and discrimination in this state that sometimes thinks so highly of itself in that area. It is truly shameful how we discriminated against all migrant workers, whether of color or the Oakies that came to us from the Dust Bowl. The stories of abuse of power by the police and other government entities were very interesting.
I would love to have every Californian---especially our politicians---read Mr. Starr's work. Most history is slow to read, and this is no exception, but the amounts of knowledge one will get about California, make it worth the while.
A terrific summary of California's Labor history.......1998-12-11
This fourth chapter in Starr's "Americans and the California Dream" is the best yet. I was paticularly interested, in what Starr sees as the States battle between the forces of communism and fascism. The text reads like an account of a some great war, following each battle and skirmish throughout the State. I would recommend this work to anyone who is seriously interested in California or Labor history.
Learn something new today!.......1998-07-17
I finally got around to reading "The Grapes of Wrath" and was ashamed to realize that the context of the story was all new to me. Right about then, Kevin Starr's book came out and was reviewed in my local paper. He's done a great, steady job of illuminating the rise of the unions and the treatment of the Okies. The only major flaw I found was the lack of a map of California included in the book. I'm from the east coast and found it difficult to keep the place names straight without a ready reference.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating details.......2002-12-31
A montage of glimpses into France between the World Wars. A book of this short length, on such a subject, simply cannot cover it to any detail, no matter how skilfully written. Though the latter it certainly is, given the author's expertise as a writer and a historian.
The chapters are disconnected. There is little flow between one and the next. Which means that you can read them in any order, with little narrative loss.
Within a chapter, we see sharp anecdotes, that highlight the subject, be it the culture/s, migrants, religion or whatever. Some of these are bloody hilarious. Like, did you know that in some French cities, people were emptying slop buckets into the streets till the 1950s? Yuk! :-( Wow! That regular bathing was rare, and widely considered unhealthy?
Some attitudes, like the suspicion of the emanations of power lines, echo today's views in France and elsewhere in Europe, about genetically modified foods.
Quite a nice read.
France in fragments.......2001-02-25
'The Hollow Years' was an unsatisfying, yet compelling read. Eugen Weber offers his readers a truly kaleidoscopical view of what France (partly) was in the 1930's. Each chapter centers a baffling amount of facts around themes as society, religion, morality, agriculture, demographics, the highs and lows of the French economy, and last but not least French politics. After having finished reading, the reader has digested such an amount of data that one wonders how Eugen Weber could have possibly called this book 'The hollow years'.
Weber's book contains excellent passages. The first chapter, in which Weber describes the widespread sentiment against war is very well written. The issues of religious life, emerging leisure and vacation, and the emancipation of French women are well worked out. Yet, over the whole, Weber has not been able to free himself from the weight of the primary (and secondary) sources stacked (in amazing quantity) in the footnotes. We read facts, hardly interpretations. We get information, but little overview. The book develops no grand, overarching themes. The image of France stays very diffuse. Fittingly, the book does not end on a conclusion.
The author's choice to solely focus on facts, not trends, results in the incomprehensible omission of cardinal elements of what France (also) was in the 1930's:
- Despite the eye-popping blue on the 1930 world-maps, Weber entirely ignores the French domination of Viet-Nam, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Madagascar and enormous parts of Africa. The Colonial Exposition (1930), which marks the apogee of French empire and attracted millions of visitors is left virtually untreated.
- During the 1930's, the French Communist Party became the most important West-European Communist Party and a leading force in French politics. We do not read anything about the roots of this emergence, nor the importance of communists within French political life.
- After 15 years of division, 1936 saw the merger of the two most important French trade unions: the CGT of the socialist Leon Jouhaux (Nobel Peace prize 1951) and the communist-oriented CGTU, led by Benoit Frachon. Together, they fought for the 40-hour work week and controlled an enormous block of voters, but are absent in the Hollow Years.
Moreover, the book is drenched with a sustained and often irritating antipathy towards virtually all leading French politicians, diplomats and armymen. Weber does not treat France kindly at all. The author allows himself to make patronizing comments towards the behavior of leading politicians on numerous occasions. The extreme negativity of the tone makes the reader constantly want to question the arguments which are put forward. As such, reading Hollow Years was a rather sharpening intellectual experience.
Charming, clever, but more anecdotal than analytic.......1999-08-13
On first glance Weber does not appear to be an ideological historian. He is lighter, more charming, and more tolerant than, say, Richard Pipes. Peasants into Frenchman, his most famous book, is noticeably more profound than Pipes' own relfections on the Russian peasantry where the gap in class, religion and nation produces a noticeably gap in sympathy. But this is ultimately misleading. Weber is an ideologue of consumerism. The problem with this account of the thirties is the subtle but insinuating sense of superiority that Weber feels against France for being insufficiently wealthy, insufficiently successful, insufficiently innovative. It is too worried about dreary politics of the left and right, not like the hip charming sexy centrists of the New Republic. His anecdotes look less at complex debates about French diplomacy, its economic performance, class struggle and about the "real" issue of living in our joyful yet principled anti-Communist consumer utopia, and how France fails on this score. The result is a stimulating book full of lively detail which is subtly misleading. Historians recognize that they have the advantage of hindsight, and that the people they study do not. Weber seems to forget this crucial point.
Weber's gift for anecdote can be seen in his discussion of the diffusion of such things as refrigerators, telephones, electricity. French roads were so bad in the thirties that one would not bet to get from Paris to Lyons in less than nine hours. When Jacques Le Roy Ladurie, a leading French historian went for his driver's liscence, he hit a wall and a chicken and nearly missed a pedestrian, but still got his liscence. Carmelite nuns never washed themselves and used paper strips when menstruating. He describes the often hostile attitude towards feminism and towards immigrants.
Yet Weber's wide range of source reflects an indulgence in anecdotes rather than a sharp sense of analysis. The result is a scattershot impressionism which exaggerates French weakness and decline. He quotes Lindberg's contemptuous comments on the army, but other contemporary comments said French soliders were more determined and resolute. Weber quotes an unflattering song by Maurice Chevalier on the army, but not Paif's more patriotic Mon Legionnaire. Labor struggles are simply blamed at one point on communist agitation, much is made of pacifist fearmongering and naivete. Yet the sinister and authoritarian Croix de Feu is absolved of being fascist. Ultimately the arguments are strings of anecdotes which do not fully take into account of opposing arguments.
Very good account of France before the debacle.......1999-06-11
As a great fan of Weber, particularly his social histories of turn-of-the-century France, I bought this book with the highest expectations. There are endless lessons to be drawn from France's disastrous policies and psychological conditions in the 1920s and 1930s. Striking and poignant are the contrasts both with pre-1914 France and with the nation's confident development after World War Two. Weber certainly captures much of this, and you can't quarrel with the thrust of his analysis. He is also a very elegant writer. Newcomers to this period of French history will therefore greatly enjoy his book. For those with deeper prior knowledge of inter-war France, the book may be a tad disappointing because so much of the detail is familiar and available elsewhere. Nevertheless, well worth reading.
Average customer rating:
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The Great Depression in Europe, 1929-1939 (European History in Perspective)
Patricia Clavin
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
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Binding: Paperback
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Book Description
This is a comparative study of the origins, course and consequences of deepest economic crisis in modern European history. Written with the non-economist in mind, the book explores recent research into the causes of the depression, notably the gold standard "system" which helped to turn recession into profound depression and to transmit its effects around the world. The book gives equal weight to the political and historical context of economic policy-political attitudes and expectations, institutional opinions, strategic considerations, the 'legacies and lessons'-to explain why European countries chose nationalist routes to recovery. International co-operation offered the best chance for recovery and the book also contains a lively account of why this failed and its consequences for international relations in the 1930s.
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.
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