The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #166

by Eric Rauchway

The New Deal shaped our nation's politics for decades, and was seen by many as tantamount to the "American Way" itself. Now, in this superb compact history, Eric Rauchway offers an informed account of the New Deal and the Great Depression, illuminating its successes and failures.

Rauchway first describes how the roots of the Great Depression lay in America's post-war economic policies--described as "laissez-faire with a vengeance"--which in effect isolated our nation from the world economy just when the world needed the United States most. He shows how the magnitude of the resulting economic upheaval, and the ineffectiveness of the old ways of dealing with financial hardships, set the stage for Roosevelt's vigorous (and sometimes unconstitutional) Depression-fighting policies. Indeed, Rauchway stresses that the New Deal only makes sense as a response to this global economic disaster. The book examines a key sampling of New Deal programs, ranging from the National Recovery Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the Public Works Administration and Social Security, revealing why some worked and others did not. In the end, Rauchway concludes, it was the coming of World War II that finally generated the political will to spend the massive amounts of
public money needed to put Americans back to work. And only the Cold War saw the full implementation of New Deal policies abroad--including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

Today we can look back at the New Deal and, for the first time, see its full complexity. Rauchway captures this complexity in a remarkably short space, making this book an ideal introduction to one of the great policy revolutions in history.

About the Oxford's Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, the series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, American History, Finance, United States

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2007

About the author

Eric Rauchway is an American historian and professor at the University of California, Davis. Rauchway's scholarship focuses on modern US political, social and economic history, particularly the Progressive Era and the New Deal.

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

When George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," he must have been thinking about the sorts of political leaders we have today (2011, when this review was originally posted, but still applicable to the USA of 2024) as Republicans and some Democrats seem determined to repeat the errors of that earlier time. Those who espouse looking forward only, it can usually be seen, are eager to avoid responsibility for what lies behind. And so it is today. Looking backward, or learning from experience, not looking to recreate an idealization of such times, is what intelligent people do, in order to attempt to better understand extant conditions, and better evaluate ways of overcoming difficulties. What better place to cast one’s rearward gaze than the Great Depression?


Eric Rauchway - image from UC Davis

The Great Depression & The New Deal is hardly a comprehensive look at one of the darkest episodes in American history, but it offers a very nice summary indeed. It tells of various New Deal programs, their derivations, their purposes and some of the political wrangling and compromises that were infused into their DNA. There were things in the book that I found fascinating, if a bit alarming. FDR, this icon of 20th century liberalism, began with a fairly conservative perspective. I was not aware that many local governments delayed or even repudiated their debt obligations. The way we could be headed, pending the results in November 2024, looking at the likelihood of demand-free, cut-only recovery programs, it would not surprise me to see that happen again. In 2020, faced with the depression-inducing corona-virus calamity, Republicans yet again looked to minimize public expenditures, in a slavish short-termist view of the world. The lesson of The New Deal is that when problems are huge, a huge response is merited.

The intention of the book is fairly straight ahead information provision, with no obvious partisan view in evidence. And it does a pretty good job of not only covering the broad strokes of what was going on during this time, but offering a look at underlying issues, and some of the history of what brought on the madness. Good stuff, and a definite spur for further investigation. It abets this by providing a considerable bibliography of recommended reading.

Failure to cast a glance into the rear-view mirror could be fatal, particularly if one cannot be bothered keeping track of the semi that is barreling down one’s lane with dark intent. This small volume gives readers a small mirror to help stave off disaster.

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

To sum up, this book was interesting but a little too heavy. Turns out length doesn't protect a book from being tedious. I honestly don't have much else to say about it. 

However, since I'm using the GR 2020 space to track my reading challenge, I'm going to write my 2020 summary over here. My usage of review space for my own life shouldn't surprise anyone at this point. Also, the Great Depression is easily a two word summary of this year for me.

So 2020 didn't go as planned, to state that lightly. However, I read a lot. It's been years since I read 161 books. Turns out having a social life really was getting in the way of my reading. Dear god, it feels like this year lasted forever and I read so many books but here goes: 

Books that taught me the most:
- Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
- Becoming Israeli: National Ideals and Everyday Life in the 1950s
- Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty
- Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War

Favorite fiction:
-The Starless Sea
- The House in the Cerulean Sea
- If We Were Villains
- A Woman Is No Man

Best series: 
- I didn't read any series that I adored so this is a tie between A Darker Shade of Magic and Shadow and Bone, which were both nice.

Favorite ARC (I didn't read many ARCs this year, mostly because I have been developing book commitment issues):
- Like Spilled Water

Best memoirs:
-Know My Name
- Infidel (I just can't stop talking about this book)

Favorite poetry:
Night Sky with Exit Wounds (this stanza has been echoing through my head during quarantine:
get up. The most beautiful part of your body
is where it’s headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world.) 

Favorite book from my reading around the world challenge:
- Freshwater

Reading my 2019 summary is making me feel several shades of terrible but I'm gonna celebrate achievements this year too, even if I spent 85% of it sitting at home studying. Here goes! 

Top 7 things that happened in 2020:
1. I finished my first uni year! Not with the grades I would have liked but hey, I finished two exam seasons and that's something to celebrate. Learned that failing Econ is not so bad. I'm never gonna be an economist but there is actual joy in being able to say "well, economically speaking...". These big scary adult things are still intimidating even if you understand them (tariffs and bonds, pls leave me alone), philosophy is never going to be my field (seriously, so not built for philosophy), uni is better with friends and a library. Contrary to popular belief, my computer managed to survive the year. Academia is not nearly close to what I had dreamed it would be, unfortunately, but I'm grateful for it, regardless.   

2. I've been writing summaries for each and every paper we read in 3 courses. This might seem like a minor thing but I'm legitimately proud of myself for committing to this, even if it takes time and not mandatory at all (uni friends who comment on my dumb puns and teen angst is very motivating tho). It turns out reading papers thoroughly is key to understanding courses, who knew? 

3. The last time I met up with more than one person was during September. Before that, it was in March. This feels like an achievement. I've given up on a lot for this pandemic. I made a decision to put other people's health over my social life (which seems like a very reasonable thing) and I'm glad that I kept this promise, even though it was tough (damn you, friends who don't seem to feel morally obligated to stay home). 

4. I had a dream in Arabic sometime in March! I'd like to say my Arabic improved apart from that but I feel it's more accurate to say that my Arabic skills didn't deteriorate for the first time in years. I still struggle with everything grammar related but I can sometimes understand stuff and that's exciting. Here's to 2021, where I will definitely become better, here's to traveling to Dubai and Rabat (damn Netanyahu for accomplishing stuff).  

5. I broke out of so many comfort zones. My uni course on technology is making me hesitant to overshare here but suffice to say that I broke barriers that I didn't think I could break and it was immensely challenging. 2019 was still more earth shattering for me but this year also mattered. This year mattered. 

6. Dialogues. So many dialogues. I think this was a year for patience, frustration and facing reality. And as I jumped between conversations with settlers, Palestinians, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, queer leftists and diaspora Jews, it sometimes felt like I had no idea what I believe in but at the end, this type of confusion is probably healthier than thinking you have solutions for everything. There were moments when I felt that we're all doomed, that the Middle East is cursed as a land of wars, feuds and death but there were also moments when it felt like my generation is more capable, clever and compassionate than those before us and that we're going to make this better.

6. Work was good. That is a thing that happened. 

7.  I didn't do enough art and I didn't do enough writing and I didn't do any theater and I didn't run any races and I barely left my hometown (I think I might even miss going to Tel Aviv) and I made zero progress on my long term goals and I didn't succeed academically as much as I'd like (if i had a time machine, I'd still pick this degree, even if it's clearly not where my talents lie, that speaks volumes to me) and I didn't explore my surrounding as much as I'd like but I was happy more days than I was not. I was a decent friend and I spent a lot of time with my family and I meditated more than last year and I met lots of wonderful people (both online and off!) and I learned a lot (watch me calculate CPIs and do a Rawlsian reflective equilibrium). It feels like this year was a waste because I missed many opportunities but it wasn't.  

for 2021: 
1. Listen more. I don't need to talk as much as I do. I want my words to mean more than they do. 

2. God dammit, volunteer, I hate that this keeps showing up in my to-do lists, if I had time to volunteer throughout 2016, I should have time for it even now. 

3. I made an oath to decide what I want to do after uni by December 2021. So for that to happen, I want to prioritize thinking about the future seriously. If I want to go back to art, I want to spend the time picking out a good space (pls accept me, fancy European art schools). I want to discover this year if I'm most drawn to doing stuff with my MBA, Politics, writing or activism/ community work, at least for the near future.  

4. Keep asking hard identity questions, even when it hurts. In 2020, I learned that I still feel most at home in Orthodox Jewish spaces, despite everything. It's baffling- I should be comfortable with Reconstructivists and Reform Jews but at the end, give me a space at the national religious Jews table and I'm happy. I'm an edgy kid at the Orthodox table, first and foremost, always choosing to be a tail to the lions before a head to the foxes (ayy, mishnah references). 

5. Pay attention. It's so easy for me to spend entire weeks inside my head (and yet, I'm always gonna support empiricists over rationalists). 

6. Create more things outside of uni. I've got to create for myself, I've got finish some projects this year. 

Well. Here's to 2021, I guess.

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Depression And The New Deal Discussed Concisely

The Oxford University Press publishes a series called "Very Short Introductions" written by authorities in their fields. The series helps to introduce busy and curious readers to a wide variety of subjects. The series numbers nearly 200 volumes and includes subjects from history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. This series constitutes an admirable way for any person to learn something about new matters and to expand his or her intellectual horizons.

Eric Rauchway's recent contribution to the series, "The Great Depression & the New Deal" (2008) offers, in 130 pages, a succinct, thoughtful overview of a pivotal and controversial period of American history. Rauchway is Professor of History at the University of California Davis. His books include ""Murdering McKinley: the Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America" and "Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America." In his "Very Short Introduction" to the Depression and New Deal, Rauchway makes no pretense of offering a complete or a definitive account. Instead, he offers "some basic ideas for a first understanding of this profound crisis and America's still-influential legislative response." Rauchway includes a good bibliography "on the principle that you will go on from here if you wish to fully appreciate the period." For the briefness of its approach, Rauchway's book offers good insight into the Depression and New Deal.

In his opening chapter, Rauchway traces the origins of the Great Depression to the world-wide collapse of the economic order following WW I, with the tensions between the creditor nation, the United States, and the debt-laden rest of the world. He discusses the uncontrolled expansion of credit in the United States and the speculation-driven rise of the stock market. On October 24, 1929, the stock market crashed and the Depression soon followed. Rauchway offers a good discussion on the relationship between the crash and the Depression.

Rauchway follows the onset of the Depression with a discussion of the steps the Hoover administration took in response. Rauchway points out, contrary to some opinion, that Hoover took measures, particularly late in his administration, designed to get the Federal government involved in combating the Depression. Rauchway remains, however, highly critical of Hoover.

The bulk of this short book describes the pervasiveness of the Great Depression and the actions of both Roosevelt and Congress to both end the Depression and to try to correct structural deficiencies in the American economy to prevent such a catastrophe from happening again. Rauchway thus divides New Deal programs into those designed to end the Depression and those designed to prevent another. He also tries to assess those programs which succeeded and those which failed. For a short book, he considers the interplay of Roosevelt's New Deal with the activities of Congress, the Supreme Court, State and local governments, businesses, and ordinary people. Rauchway argues that as the New Deal progressed it moved to a system of strengthening outsiders to economic or political power as a means of combating the Depression and as an alternative to statism.

Many people argue that the New Deal did not work to end the Depression. They point out that the economy exceeded its pre-1929 level only with the advent of war in 1940. Rauchway acknowledges the crucial role of United States entry into WW II in stimulating the economy. But he argues as well that the New Deal was successful. He points out that the economy improved markedly in every year between 1932 and 1940, with the exception of a short recession in 1937. He gives Roosevelt and his programs a great deal of credit for the economic revival and for making necessary changes which preserved the American way of life.

Rauchway concludes that the New Deal was a collection of many different programs and ideas some of which conflicted with each other. The New Deal did not effect a radical change in American life but rather proceeded in a haphazard, improvisatory manner. Rauchway concludes that "the openly experimental, obviously fallible, always compromised quality of the New Deal programs and their progeny reflected the imperfect democracy that gave them birth.... The New Deal's evident imperfection invited criticism and further tinkering, making way for improvements to the American democracy in the years afterward and yet to come."

Both the causes of the Great Depression and the remedies offered by the New Deal raise complex economic questions that cannot be fully described in a book of this brevity. Yet, Rauchway has fulfilled his purpose of writing a good "very short introduction" which will encourage his readers to think further about the economic and social change wrought by the Depression and New Deal.

Robin Friedman

[Mahmoud Aghiorly · Rating 5 out of 5]

هذا واحد من الكتب المميزة جداً من سلسلة مقدمة قصيرة جداً , فالكتاب يفكك لك الكثير من المعضلات والمصطلحات الاقتصادية المعقدة ويقدمها لك بأبسط الاساليب عبر عرض أزمة الكساد الكبير التي مرت بها الولايات المتحدة الامريكية وعبر شرح تلك الازمة يمكن للقارىء ان يعي تماما كيف ولد النظام المالي الامريكي الحالي و ما هي مسببات الكساد و ماهي ردود الأفعال المتخذة إزاء الأزمة المالية حين تحدث , بدءا من نظام الاحتياطي الفيدرالي وانتهاء بدور رئيس الدولة , و سوف يعرض لك الكتاب أيضاً جسامة الكساد الكبير الذي مرت به الولايات المتحدة وتأثيره الواسع النطاق على كافة قطاعات الاقتصاد الأمريكي وجزءا كبيرا من اقتصاد العالم ولكن الاهم من ذلك سوف يشرح لك كيف ان خطوات معالجة الكساد والازمة المالية ادت لنمو شريحة الفقراء السود و تعميق الهوة في الاجور بين الذكور والاناث و الصراع الدائم بين الحرص حماية المستهلك والدفع على رفع اجور العاملية , و ما اضاف بعداً آخر للكتاب أيضاً هو شرح كيف استخدمت سدة الحكم في الولايات المتحدة الفن في محاربة الكساد , الكتاب مميز جدا وانصح به وتقيمي له 5/5

مقتطفات من كتاب الكساد الكبيروالصفقة الجديدة للكاتب إريك راشواي
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الكساد واليأس وتفكّك الحضارة ستنجم عن التبعات الاقتصادية المترتِّبة على السلام
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حاولتِ الولايات المتحدة الحدّ من الهجرة إليها قبل الحرب، ولكنها اضطلعت بالمهمة في عشرينيات القرن العشرين بمزيدٍ من الهمة، وحقّقتْ فيها قدرا أكبر من النجاح؛ فقد حدّد الكونجرس الحدود القصوى للمهاجرين بموافقته على قانونيْ ١٩٢١ و ١٩٢٤ ، في حين منعتْ بلاد العالم الجديد الأخرى الهجرة بطرقها الخاصة؛ فبعضها انضمّ للولايات المتحدة في حظر الراديكاليين السياسيين وفئات المجرمين أو الفقراء أو المعاقين، وحاول البرازيليون توجيه الهجرة إلى المزارع، بدلا من المدن. وأتاح قانون الهجرة بكندا لعام 1919 للمسئولين حظْر المهاجرين … الذين يعتبرون غير مناسبين بسبب تقاليدهم وعاداتهم، وأنماط حياتهم وصعّبتْ هذه القيود على الأوروبيين إيجاد فرص خارج بلادهم،
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مع الحرب تبوّأتِ الولايات المتحدة مركزا مختلفا تماما، فتحولت — تقريبا بين عشية وضحاها — من أكبر مدين في العالم إلى أكبر دائن في العالم، وحلّت نيويورك محل لندن باعتبارها المقرِض الرئيسي في شبكة الائتمان العالمية. وكان لهذه الحركة مغزى أكبر من مجرد التحوّل في المركز أو الريادة؛ فديون ما بعد الحرب اختلفتْ عن اقتراض ما قبل الحرب؛ فالمقترضون من العالم الجديد أنفقوا القروض البريطانية في القرن التاسع عشر على مدِّ السكك الحديدية وإقامة المزارع، كي يرسوا الأساس لجدارتهم على السداد لمقرِضيهم. أما الدول المقترضة التي رفعت راية الحرب، فقد أنفقتِ القروض الأمريكية وقت الحرب على الذخائر والقذائف، قاضية على تلك الجدارة. أما الدول التي خرجتْ جريحة من الحرب فقد اقترضتْ مزيدا من المال لسداد ديونها، وأحيانا ما كانت تقترض من أمريكا لتسدِّد مستحقات الدول المحارِبة الأخرى التي كانت بدورها تسدِّد مستحقاتِ أمريكا.
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في عام ١٩٢٠ سجّلتْ مكاتب السيارات وجود سيارة واحدة فقط مسجّلة لكلِّ ثلاث أسر، وبحلول نهاية العقد امتلكتْ كلّ أسرة تقريبا في البلد سيارة. كان هناك حوالي ٢٣ مليون سيارة في عام ١٩٢٩ ، في بلد بلغ تعداد سكانه حينها ١٢٣ مليون نسمة تقريبا؛ وهذا معناه أنه لو أن كلّ ستة أشخاص استوعبتْهم سيارة واحدة، لارتاد البلد بأسره الطرقات في وقتٍ واحدٍ.
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فترة الكساد هي تلك الفترة التي … يجري الإبقاء فيها على مستوى الإنتاج منخفِضا إلى أن يتخلّص من المخزون الفائض، ولا يلتزم بالتزامات جديدة حتى يكون هناك ضمان معقول بتحصيل أرباح؛ أي إن فترة الكساد، على ظلامها وكآبتها، بمنزلة متنفّس للأعمال
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مرّتِ الولايات المتحدة بفترات كساد قبل ثلاثينيات القرن العشرين؛ إلا أن الكساد الكبير، من حيث النطاق الذي شمله والفترة التي استغرقها وحداثة تسجيل وقائعه، أدّى أيضا إلى انضغاط عظيم في الأجور؛ فالدولة المترابطة حديثا أصبح لديها المذياع والأفلام الإخبارية في جميع المدن كي تعرف منها بنفسها كيف كان شعبها يعاني. ومع استمرار الكساد، أخذ يضع الطبقة الوسطى أكثر فأكثر في ظروف الفقراء، وشجّع على المشاركة الوجدانية بين الطبقات
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عندما كان أرباب العمل يعلِنون عن وظائف، كانوا يتمتّعون بالحرية في انتقاء العمّال، وربما أخضعوا ذلك لتفضيلاتهم وتحيّزاتهم. وعلى نحوٍ متزايدٍ، كانوا يستعينون بخدمات البِيض من أصحاب خبرة العمل أو يبقون عليهم، تاركين الصغار والكبار والنساء والأمريكيين من أصول أفريقية حتى أصبحوا يمثِّلون شريحة ضخمة جدٍا من العاطلين. وقبل الانهيار، مع انضمام المرأة إلى القوى العاملة لأول مرة بأعداد ملحوظة، وجد الأمريكيون أنه من السهل الاعتقاد بأنه إذا عملتِ المرأة، فإنها تقوم بذلك من أجل أن تنفق المال ببذخٍ، وأنه من القويم أن تعتمد المرأة على الرجل الذي سيوفِّر سبيل العيش لزوجته وأطفاله، باعتباره ربّ الأسرة. وفي ظلِّ وفرة العمالة في زمن الكساد، كان أرباب العمل — أحيانا من باب سياسة العمل وأحيانا أخرى من قبيل العادة فحسب — يستعينون بخدمات عدد أقل من النساء المتزوِّجات، وأخذوا باستمرار يستغنون عن خدمات العاملات لديهم
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فعندما انخفضت قيمة الدولار، ارتفع ثمن سلع المزارع، لا سيما القطن والحبوب؛ مما سهّل على المزارعين المدينين سداد ديونهم
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إدارة روزفلت عملت بالفعل على إعادة توزيع الثروة، لكن ليس من خلال سياسة فرضالضرائب؛ فهي في المقابل أرادتْ أن تعمل السوق على نحوٍ أكثر عدالة، من أجل تخصيص أجور أعلى للعمال والمستهلكين دون التدخّل الحكومي المباشِر. ولتحقيق هذا الهدف، عزّزتِ الصفقة الجديدة من نموِّ منظمات العمّال والمستهلكين المخوّل إليها إجراء مفاوضات جماعية، ومن ثمّ أكثر فعالية، من أجل الحصول على نصيب أفضل من السوق. ودعمت نظريةٌ بسيطةٌ هذه السياسة: إذا غدتِ الأعمال أكثر تنظيما من ذي قبل، ومن ثمّ أكثر كفاءة في تقليل نفقاتها، فينبغي على مشتري المنتجات وبائعي العمالة التنظيم وتعلّم الكفاءة. وفي أحد تطبيقات هذه النظرية، شجّعتْ إدارة الإنعاش الوطني على تنظيم المستهلكين والعمال
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[William2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a helpful volume and a good place to start your reading on this subject. In so brief a volume, however, the author has focused mainly on the legislative history of The New Deal. If you want a narrative about how the Depression affected the day-to-day lives of Americans (and I did), you won't find it here, except in the briefest and most abstract terms, though you might try David M. Kennedy's Freedom From Fear: The American People In Depression and War, 1929-1945.

[Cengiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a brief explanation of the reasons of Great Depression and how American presidents Hoover and especially Roosevelt handled it in order to put an end its effects.
As it is well known as long as capitalist mode of production exists, as a result of endless accumulation and expansion of capital, crisises are inevitable. However, each crisis is unique and must be understood under the conditions it emerges. After the first world war Americans began consuming durable electric machines and otomobiles. It was a sort of fake "golden age" for everyone. Folks take loans from the banks so as to invest in stock exchange at Wall Street. Some countries from overseas also evaluated their savings in the American banks and stock exchange which was supposed to be a safe haven for the assets such as gold and capital.Everyone was winning and the invested money multiplied in a short time. Everyone was happy and spending as much as they could. So much so that many celebrities of that time made investments either by selling their houses or cars. Those who had no cash or any assets got loans from the newly founded American banks. Making profits with cash money had reached the peak. Therefore, the first crash started at the Stock Exchange in New York. On Black Thursday ten thousands of people lost their everything in a single day. Then banking system which gave loand to the debters started going bankrupt. And after that the other sectors started to be effected by the crash. Millions of people lost their jobs, many bussinesses shut down their shutters and went bankrupt. Economic growth dwindled and unemployed people were in need of bowl of soup. Those who most badly were hit by the cirisis were undoubtly Afro-American community. They were "the first fired and the last hired".
The impact of this cirisis which was worldwide lasted a decade till the II.World War. During president Roosevelt's term a new economy was introduced named "New Deal" in order to recover the losses of the crash and deal with the depression. Finally, New Deal worked and the American people got rid of the deep impacts of the crisis.

[Elizabeth]

I read this guy's blog regularly (economic historian at UC Davis), and am obsessed with the stimulus debate, plus I'm working on a research project about 20th C debt in the US. So this is a natural choice. Plus, it's "very short." On his blog, he tags his discussions of current New Deal/Keynes/FDR debates "New Deal Denialist Truth Squadding." He's smart and funny. With killer stats. In case you're curious, he's of the opinion that the New Deal worked, and his numbers prove it. Helpful knowledge, but the current stimulus is in too different a global scenario to directly compare.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a 'very short introduction' in Oxford's useful series of that name. It is a simple guide to the defining event of the US' twentieth century - the New Deal that arose out of the Great Depression. It is also the story of a conservative politician [FDR] quite capable of radical rhetoric. His electoral achievement in 1936, taking every State except Maine and Vermont, was unparalleled since Munroe in 1820.

Rauchway references JK Galbraith once and Galbraith is not to be found in the Further Reading section. This in itself gives us a reason for reading it. Most of us of a certain age had our picture of the era formed by Galbraith but historiography has moved on. Rauchway's perspective is more clinical and, based in California, less subject to the East Coast liberal assumptions of JK that all matters were to be seen in a context somewhere between Washington and Wall Street.

Rauchway's thesis builds on the common view that the patrician FDR was determined on saving capitalism rather than building a state socialist version of America along contemporary European lines. But the story of the New Deal is complex.

There were radical voices but its essence came to be the replacement of a socialism for capitalists (which seems to be what post-Reaganite America has reverted to), i.e. the close association of private capital and the Federal Government in the opening up of new territories and the suppression of resistant ones such as the Deep South, with a new and softer version of corporatism in which farmers, labour and the consumer on the one hand and, geographically, the South and the West acted as counter-balances to industrial capital and the East respectively.

This theory of countervailing power, with the Federal Government as arbiter, is very different from state socialism but ultimately it accretes power in the same way. The account in the book of the Supreme Court’s conservative and partially successful struggle to crush the New Deal is an object lesson in the danger of a written constitution and of an over-mighty judiciary.

This is a lesson that needs to be learned by over-enthusiastic liberal constitutionalists in Europe but (in this reviewer’s opinion) the construction of Federal legalism as a means of effecting arbitrage reforms between countervailing powers in the context of Supreme Court conservatism has created a monster, of international proportions, that is at the root of much resentment about American extra-territorial claims. New York legalism globalised with capitalism …

The theory of countervailing power was merely a slightly more radical variation on Hoover’s ‘intelligent co-operation’. The ability of East Coast progressivism and East Coast-based capital to ‘sort things out’ between them was, in 1929, stretched beyond the limits of the old order. FDR’s New York-based network of progressive advisers were forced by economic necessity and political considerations (the demands of Democrats in the South and West) to develop a new approach.

Since the Supreme Court existed to crush radical intent, the strategy had to involve pulling the activist population into the recovery agenda and then deliver real benefits for key voters or failure would result in the return of traditionalists. The result in 1936 showed that the strategy was a good one politically.

The countervailing forces model still placed private enterprise at the forefront of economic recovery which was only sensible in a fully capitalist economy. The TVA and other public engagements in the economy were exemplary in order to encourage better capitalist practice and to kick-start the economies of the South and (later, in the late military-industrial era) the West but they did not represent a serious incursion of socialism into American economic life.

We see here the seeds of the formalisation of American corporatism as an alliance between large corporations and government, with a voice for labour, consumers, smallholders and, eventually, African-Americans, women, gays and ethnic communities, being laid in the NRA.

This is a model, we might call it neo-progressive, that is now normal across the Atlantic system. The downside was that major corporations, using the lobby system, not only gained advantages from closeness to Government (as under the old system with localized serious differences) but were to engage Washington as agent for overseas expansion and to set the conditions of trade and ensure that regulation could be used to raise costs for smaller business competitors in traditional industries.

Rauchway hints at rather than states developments beyond 1938 but there is little point in studying this era unless we can understand better our own. Obama seems to be no FDR but rather to have arrived, on the back of emotional rhetoric, at his own 'second term' (without a first) with no leeway or real interest in doing much more than patching up FDR’s original system where he can.

The health care programme that eventually was passed, much weaker than original proposals from Left-Democrats, seems to be the only major item of legislation that truly matches the scope of FDR’s first two years and most of the rest appears to be tinkering around the New Deal Settlement, perhaps because the Supreme Court really did set limits for any Presidential strategy of economic transformation.

Similarly, the American electorate would scarcely have 'got' socialism in 1932, let alone 2008 after sixty years of anti-communist indoctrination, instilled patriotic pride as the world’s top dog and, mostly, prosperity built on a perception of the virtues of hard work, individualism and (for a large proportion of the population) God.

The integration of the trades unions as junior corporate partners within the Washington lobby state in the 1930s was succeeded by a power struggle in the 1940s within the union movement that resulted in the destruction of all socialist and communist influence. By the 1950s, the AFL-CIO was, effectively, operating overseas through its indirect influence to assist anti-communist labour movement allies defeat local socialists and communists.

FDR achieved a great deal in his first four years, often despite his own conservatism, and he effected the first stage in a political revolution that would genuinely come to be inclusive of African-Americans and would permit federal action to meet social objectives. Without FDR, there could have been no Obama and the 1960s might have been nastier and more violent.

However, the New Deal was faltering by mid-second term. There is a disturbing sense (not fully accounted for by Rauchway because it is out of his period) that Roosevelt’s preoccupation with war after the 1938 Congressional Elections was a reaction not so much to domestic failure as to the boring slog of domestic policy-making in a vibrant democracy where Executive Power was severely delimited.

War has the virtue of being more fulfilling to an executive authority, generating economic demand quickly and uniting the nation – in this sense, FDR comes to look far more like his European fascistic counterparts than we may find comfortable to contemplate and, as Hitler expands, he starts to find an ideological cover for war that served equally for Churchill and which fulfilled the needs of what would become the Atlantic system.

The proof of the pudding is always in the numbers. By the end of 1943, the last of the major New Deal agencies has been closed down yet federal spending had increased from 8% of GDP in 1938 to a staggering 40% in 1943. Work relief was not now required because war increased the demand for labour - and it was in 1943 that the US unemployment rate finally fell to 1929 levels. In short, even a cursory connection with Keynesian ideas would have told any world leader that militarisation in a world of closing borders was a serious option for national economic recovery.

The conclusion is sinister but true enough – faced with constitutional limitations and democratic politics at home, radical permanent regeneration of the economy (as opposed to a simple turn-round so that the trend is slow improvement) within the American Imperium requires war.

War created both the military-industrial complex that so unnerved the traditional Republican Eisenhower in the 1950s and the need for ideological cover, represented by the discovery and promotion of a philosophically absurd but now globally dominant ‘rights agenda’ that mobilises the naïve young and ideologues on one side just as racial destiny and scientific materialism mobilised the young and the ideological on other sides.

FDR was creator of this agenda (eventually as international phenomenon) in his 1944 State of the Union Address. It would not be difficult to flip this over into an aggressive anti-Communist assault under his successor who nearly lost the election on the concerns of the South because of FDR’s perceived radicalism.

This eventual internationalisation of the New Deal is perhaps the defining aspect of the American period in the sun, whether we call it by the politically charged terms of New World Order or Washington Consensus or the more neutral Atlantic System.

Within half a century, the countervailing powers model had become the international soft power structures of the UN, IMF and World Bank and then, latterly, the link between the Atlantic system, multinationals and NGOs. Allies would become semi-autonomous states in the imperial union.

Federal legalism would come to impose one way demands in regard to corruption and extradition and, as the Wikileaks cables have exposed, politicians in satrapies as diverse as the UK and Yemen worry about their status in Washington and lie to their own populations in order to please the agents of an American President. Rights theory (somewhat shorn of its original socio-economic aspects) became so embedded in popular culture that it came, latterly, to distort aid-giving and risk super-power confrontation.

Rauchway deals with little of this. He describes and restricts himself to his period but we need to be prepared to think forward to where this would all lead one day.

The contentious interpretation that I have given above of the post-war American Imperium provides a solid reason for reading not only this and other histories of American domestic politics in the decade or so before it erupted fully on to the world stage as dominant global power. To understand the world today, it is vital to understand America itself between 1920 and 1950.

Most people will be looking into this era because of a desire to understand better the 2008 Crash (and, yes, such study has its uses) but no Crash is like any other and what happened in 2008 has to be seen as just the latest in a constant and recurring feature of capitalism – its progress through creative destruction.

It is brutal but it works, at least on these terms and amidst the same sort of suffering that nature also imposes on us. Taming nature and taming market are much the same - do nothing and you die, do too much and you die.

Just as the current crisis arose from excessive credit, so did the Crash of 1929 - and what happened in 2008 was, to a great extent, inevitable. The US Administration saved capitalism in the early 1930s and the challenge for Obama (on which the jury is out) is to do the same for Americanised global capitalism in the early 2010s. I am sure he will succeed but the costs to America itself may be so great that the coming decades could be among the most internally fractious in living memory.

Two years on from his election, State Governments are facing budgetary difficulties that have simply been pushed forward in time from their equivalent level in 1930. State defaults on debts were happening within months of the Stock Market Crash in 1929. The quantitative easing strategies of the Administration have merely pushed the state budgetary crises into 2011 much as international funding strategies keep pushing the potential for a sovereign debt meltdown into the same year.

FDR, as a conservative, was driven in part by the importance of sound money so inflationary strategies were not really driven hard until war broke out. The question remains across the West at what point will the suffering of some to the point of riot and revolt demand an acceptance of inflationary printing of money that will wipe out the wealth of the baby boomers.

If FDR was redistributing between regions to avoid redistributing between classes as Rauchway appears to suggest, will Obama distribute between classes to avoid distributing between generations (which is what is really required)?

Obama, oddly given his street activist and African-American base, appears to be following Hoover in worrying about the banking system’s recovery while the situation of a lot of the poor and middle class quietly degenerates.

Whereas, in 1930, the elite feared anarchy of the left and the right, Obama has neutered the left by his very presence in office. His failure has its potential answer in the slightly unhinged populist right of the Tea Party.

If the Federal Government, for all its power, cannot deliver the goods and yet keeps bankers in yachts, then the once-Democrat now-Republican ‘small man’ is inclined to throw the Government out of the door and leave the urban masses and the young to their fates. The Democrats still appear not to ‘get’ this rage and seem determined on patching up the system rather than rethinking it.

The real difference between then and now is that today’s creative destruction is not just accidentally global because no one had fully realised the central role of the American economy in the 1920s. It is centrally global because the American economy has been understood to be central to the world economy for sixty years or more and neither China nor the European Union have established themselves as ‘countervailing forces’.

The clever money in Washington knows that this crisis means bringing the EU and China into economic alignment but this is one more big step towards the populist fear of a world government that ignores the little man – a step first taken by FDR in his support for the UN.

If the New Deal settlement can now only be tinkered with and adjusted in slow motion and at huge expense (which is what the Obama Administration appears to be doing), then it means that the global system is highly vulnerable and others may start to question whether the US can be relied upon in the future.

Certainly there is no easy war on hand to regenerate the West - bunch of tribal Pathans and Muslim extremists might help keep some spending up but will scarcely mobilise a nation or a global system. And, in any case, American innovation has made war a matter of thermonuclear destruction not job-creating industrial enterprise and full employment.

So, all of us should seek to understand how the US came to be what it is today. This short book is a good start. The book also has a useful table of Hoover and New Deal legislation from 1932 (the initial banking aid) through to June 1938 when the programme might be said to have ended with a national minimum wage, maximum hours and child labour law. The New Deal was acronym-heavy so it is good to be prepared …

[Hend awad · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب دسم واكاديمي بحت يذكرني بالكتب الدراسية ومكثف كأنه ورقة بحثية من الواجب أن تكون ملمة بأغلب تفاصيل الموضوع وهو ما تسبب في شعور بالملل والضيق اثناء قراءة الكتاب لانه يقفز من معلومة لأخر بدون تمهيد...

يحتوى الكتاب على عرض شامل لأزمة الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية إبان الحرب العالمية الأولى وكيفية الخروج من الأزمة بواسطة هوفر وإخفاقة في تحقيق ذلك بسبب زيادة معدل البطالة وفشل برنامج الغوث والإعانات...

ثم تتدرج الأحداث إلى أن يتولى روزفلت الحكم عام 1932 وما قام به من صفقات جديدة وجنى للضرائب بشكل غير مباشر من جيوب المزارعين وغيرهم وعلى الضفة الأخرى يتمتع رجال المصالح وأصحاب رؤوس الأموال بمزايا متعددة...

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fits well as a subject for this series, a short intro to a concrete and discrete topic. Much better than the sweeping ones trying to cover huge swaths of time and space

[Mike A · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful overview of a pivotal era in U.S. and indeed global history. It can serve as a useful primer. Though details are lacking, there is still adequate and interesting discussion around lesser-known aspects of the era, such as the attempts to co-opt established interests, and the pushback even from some liberals, including FDR, from more comprehensive reform (e.g. in the Social Security system, still far from a redistributive scheme).
I wish the dynamics of Congress were better described, especially the Democratic critical weight that crafted and/or enabled (parts of) the New Deal legislation. Indeed, such a coalition in our present moment is hardly fathomable despite the lasting success of New Deal programs, and hence is all the more interesting for it.

[Ehab mohamed · Rating 3 out of 5]

عرض لأهم أسباب الكساد الكبير والمتمثلة في القيود التي فُرضت على التجارة العالمية والديون التي أورثتها الحرب العالمية الأولى للعالم بالإضافة إلى زيادة معدل الانتاج وإقبال المواطنين على شراء السلع الكمالية باعتبارها من الضروريات وظهور نظام الائتمان فزاد إقبال الأمريكيين أكثر وأكثر على الشراء وفي نفس الوقت ازداد الانتاج لتلبية الاحتياجات المتزايدة للشعب إلى أن جاءت اللحظة الحاسمة التي ازداد فيها معدل الانتاج عن الاستهلاك بكثير مما أدى إلى الركود والكساد والعجز عن تسديد الديون وأموال الائتمان

ثم عرض الكتاب كيف فشلت إدارة هوفر في حل الأزمة والمعاناة التي بدأ يعاني منها الأمريكيون مع ارتفاع معدل البطالة والفقر والصدامات بين الحكومة وقدامى المحربين

ثم عرض كيف قدمت إدارة روزفلت من عام 1932 الصفقة الجديدة وهي مجموعة من الاصلاحات الاقتصادية والاجتماعية التي هدفها تخليص البلاد من أزمتها الطاحنة وخلق قوة مكافئة في الجنوب والغرب الأمريكيين يمكنها الصمود في وجه الشمال وذلك من خلال مشروعات ضخمة في هذه المنطقة وإمدادها بالكهرباء ودعم العمال والمستهلكين وكيف تعرضت هذه الصفقة للحرب من قبل المحكمة العليا الأمريكية وخصوم روزفلت السياسين من الجمهوريين والديموقراطيين المحافظين بالإضافة إلى المحتكرين والأغنياء الذين رفضوا هذه القوانين التي كانت في صالح العمال والزنوج بدعوى مخالفة بعض قوانينها الأسلوب والدستور الأمريكيين وكيف واجه روزفلت المحكمة العليا وكيف كان الصراع بينهما

ثم تعرض الكتاب لتأثير الحرب العالمبة الثانية على الصفقة الجديدة ومسارها

[Ginger · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is definitively appropriate. It's a 130 page summary of the causes immediately leading to the Great Depression, the social climate, and then what the Roosevelt Administration did in response to it. It reads like the extended version of a 101 level college textbook chapter. It covers A LOT of ground in very short time so it's pretty hard to hold onto the specifics and the lists of New Deal acronyms gets weary, but the refresher was definitely helpful. You can't go over this information without seeing how clearly similar the causes of and responses to that depression are to our current economic situation. I was reading this in the food pantry line and someone said "wow, how appropriate, they handing out copies?"

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, concise history of the Great Depression and Roosevelt's 'New Deal' strategy to revamp the American economy and national morale. Consistent with the high standard these books usually meet, Eric Rauchway provides a simple yet still thorough analysis of the American financial disaster of the 1930s in a way that even someone like me who does not know or read much about economics generally is able to follow and enjoy this book. Rauchway also never loses sight of the human factor relating to this issue, making an effort to remind his readers of the real human suffering during this time. All in all, this could have been a very dry and boring read, but due to the writers competent handling of his subject matter, it makes for a quick, enjoyable and informative one.

[Heba · Rating 1 out of 5]

yap yap and more yap

[نايف · Rating 5 out of 5]

انصح به لمن اراد ان يعرف عن الكساد العطيم الذي حصل في ثلاثينيات القرن الماضي.

يدمج السياسة بالاقتصاد، ليتحدث عن السياسة الاقتصادية في زمن حساس من تاريخ العالم اقتصادياً.

كيف اعتلى روزفلت عرش الرئاسة في الوقت الحساس واستطاع ان يضرب بيد من حديد على الصناعة وقطاع البنوك وتأميم الذهب في محاولة لإعادة الأمور الى اماكنها، هو روزفلت الرجل الذي ترأس ٣ فترات رئاسية ، في سابقة لم تحدث لأي رئيس امريكي سابقاً والى هذا اليوم.

[Raya راية · Rating 2 out of 5]

تعرّفت على أسباب الكساد الكبير بعد الحرب العالمية الأولى
وخطط الرؤساء الأمريكيين لتخطي هذه الأزمة
وتأثيرها على كل مجالات الحياة الأمريكية

لا أنكر بأني شعرت بملل خلال قرائتي لهذا الكتاب، لكنه جيد جداً من حيث توضيح فكرة بسيطة عن هذه المرحلة

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Succinctly crafted. No attempt to draw parallels to our own decade 2000-2010 but they are there!

A terrific foundation for a good discussion.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic introduction to the legislative history of the New Deal. The writing is accessible but does not compromise its interesting and substantial content.

[Roy Lotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than any other book I’ve read in this series, this one felt, well, very short. Perhaps this book should have focused on just one or the other of these topics, but I was left feeling as though it simply trailed off, leaving the subject hanging in mid-air. To be fair, considering the range of programs included in the New Deal, and the many personalities involved in it, jamming even a representative fraction of that into a book of 100 pages is probably impossible.

But perhaps I’m more frustrated with the topic itself. After reading several books about this time period, I am still unclear as to several things: Did the 1929 crash really cause the Great Depression? And if not, what did? Why did the depression last so long? Did the New Deal merely mollify suffering, or did it actually help to end the depression, or (as some argue) did it prolong it?

Curiously, though Hoover is typically the villain of the story, and FDR the hero, the reality seems to be far more complicated. Some authors praise Hoover for his (relative to the standards of the time) vigorous response to the disaster, while others portray him as indifferent to the suffering of everyday Americans, and a minority think that he had basically the right approach, but wasn’t given enough time. FDR, by contrast, while sometimes portrayed as an early Kenysian who wanted to spend his way out of the depression, was actually quite reluctant to use deficit spending, and arguably had no coherent ideology—just a willingness to experiment.

My impressions, after investigating this far, is that the country was at a breaking point—politically and psychologically, at least—by 1932, and FDR’s whirlwind of laws and programs passed in his first 100 days broke the death spiral of faltering confidence. It allowed people to trust their banks and gave them hope that the government would fix the problem, a sense of security which itself went a long way in stopping the economic freefall. Yet as innovative and energetic as this response was, the government simply did not spend enough—in other words, did not take on enough debt—to really stimulate the economy. It was only when the federal deficit ballooned during the Second World War, when spending eclipsed the cost of the New Deal programs, that the country definitively emerged from the Great Depression.

This is not to say that the New Deal wasn’t admirable. Yet it’s lasting significance, I think, is not as a program for economic recovery, but for embodying what was, at the time, a new idea: a government willing to work vigorously on the side of ordinary people. It was not only an unprecedented expansion of the power of the federal government—in itself, not necessarily a good thing—but it was often done for the benefit of the least fortunate. The New Deal is also significant, as Rauchway says, for pioneering a model of strong government action that was compatible with democracy, individual rights, and a free market—a striking success when compared with contemporary European countries. Perhaps it is fair to say that the New Deal was a brilliant set of solutions, but only a middling one for the problem of economic depression.

[Robert Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an extraordinarily thankless task Eric Rauchway took on here. There's probably nobody better suited to do it. Rauchway has written multiple volumes on the Great Depression and the New Deal, the 1930s economic collapse, and US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt's attempt to deal with it.

The problem with the New Deal is that there's so much to it. It's not just the most sweeping set of reforms the Untied States has ever undertaken. It's also deeply enmeshed with the US's rise to fully take up the mantle of world leadership. It encompasses pretty much everything about the politics of the 1930s, if not also the four decades that follow it. The New Deal is also the underpinning of vast realms of US economic, political, cultural and social life, down to this day, and the subject, acknowledged or unacknowledged of a ton of current political discussion.

Oh yeah, there's also very little agreement on the causes and the solutions to the economic depression that prompted the New Deal. Attempting to summarize the whole thing in a book of 2,000 pages would be a fool's errand. But Rauchway attempts to pull it off in 126 pages. He does an able job providing the cliff's notes to the cliff's notes of an understanding of this era and its implications. This book is useful as a starting point for studying the period. But most folks would probably be better served by searching out one of Rauchway's longer books.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Historian Eric Rauchway published The Great Depression and The New Deal: A Very Short Introduction in 2008. This book is a well-done, short, and readable introduction to the Great Depression and the New Deal. The book was very clearly written. Similarly to many post-Great Depression Americans, I have trouble keeping the programs and agencies straight, so I found the book helpful. Rauchway writes that Americans in the 1930s did not have this problem. They had no issues keeping the programs and agencies of the New Deal straight (Rauchway Chapter 4). The book chronically covers the different eras of the Great Depression and the New Deal. Rauchway writes, “I concern myself in this book chiefly with the 1930s-after which President Franklin Roosevelt and his contemporaries thought the New Deal ended, the book looks only briefly to its legacy in the war years” (Rauchway 4). Rauchway also covers President Roosevelt’s political views. At the same time, he was president and how they evolved. The book lists “major federal acts of the Great Depression and the New Deal” (Rauchway 137-142). The book has an index and illustrations. The book has a section entitled “further reading” (Rauchway 134-136). At the end of each chapter, Rauchway contains a section of notes. I found Eric Rauchway’s short book to be an introduction to the Great Depression and the New Deal to be an excellent introduction to the Great Depression and the New Deal.

[Trevor Williamson · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a primer to the bigger issues of the Great Depression, the Very Short Introduction provides a brief overview of topics for exploration, but I feel as though the book lacks context for some of the discussions it dives into. As a very short introduction, it plows through a lot of information very quickly, but its deep dives don't ever feel quite connected to a clear narrative overview of the decade of the '30s. Its information is good, but its narrativization is lousy.

That said, it does provide a number of excellent references for further topics of study, and is at least useful as a guide to further research about a particular area of concern surrounding the Depression. I did pick up a few things from the book, which is helpful for further study. Nevertheless, I do believe that there are better primers on the topic, and this should be used less as an introduction, and more as a supplement for learning.

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I'm sure it's historically accurate, I personally found this text to be kind of boring. That doesn't reflect on the knowledge or talent of the author of course. The challenge with this text is to take a massive subject and condense it into a very short book and I think that was done successfully. I give it 4/5 stars because I would like to either A) read more on the subject or B) read more about what Eric Rauchway has to say about the historical period, financial policy, government etc.

The subject interests me and I was able to gain some insights into the period. The reading was well timed considering our descent into an economic recession as a result of corona virus. If anything, it looks like we've learned quite a bit in terms of how to deal with financial crisis and this text for me, illuminated the roots of some of these policy structures.

[Héctor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breve pero muy completa introducción al New Deal justo hasta llegar a la 2GM. Repaso de los programas que puso en marcha y de cómo funcionaron pero también de la batalla política que tuvo lugar (con los republicanos, con el tribunal Supremo, con los demócratas del sur) y de los compromisos y límites que produjeron. Como siempre, al final no hay un plan maestro, hay un par de ideas más o menos claras que les guían, más o menos audacia, improvisación sobre la marcha y equilibrios entre bastantes partes. Tiene partes muy buenas como cuando explica que la mejor "policy" (invertir en el sur y en el oeste para salir de la crisis) era también la mejor "politics" (asegurar a los votantes demócratas en el sur y disputar los del oeste) o cuando relaciona las propuestas americanas en Bretton Woods (frente a las de Keynes) con los propios límites del New Deal.

[Nga Tran · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and useful book. Though the idea that historical patterns exist is not new, the book still amazed me with its stories of shared social, political recurrences between the 1930s' and today's society. Another nagging recurrence: the trampled fates of minority groups, notably African American throughout US history and especially during tough times.
In a way, it is an ambitious little book with multi-disciplinary perspectives as well as sympathetic stances in support of unrepresented people whose voices were so often neglected. A quick read but left me inspired and motivated to learn more about history.

[Michael Jolls · Rating 3 out of 5]

Admittedly, this is the first "A Very Short Introduction" book that I've read, and to be honest it didn't seem "very short." The second half of the book is where it started to lose interest because it goes into the legislative details of the various government projects and... well, as someone who is NOT an expert on the Great Depression, this is such a clique critique... Rauchway could have trimmed a couple paragraphs from the second half. It started great, but began to lose my interest as it went through the 1930s. However, on that note, I appreciate that he took the time to highlight the Republican's concerns to the socialist tendencies of what FDR was doing.

[Mohamed · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good introduction to the new deal. Does not say much about anything but it does not cover mostly the causes of the great depression. It is focused on how Roosevelt policies dealt with the crises. It was a very good discussion but I was hoping to get some new information about the great depression itselt. It can be good as introduction only.

[Sky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rebuilding America's Finances During the Great Depression

Read this for work to create inquiry questions and discuss them. This work contains a great synopsis on how the want of more led to financial downfall worldwide and the steps FDR and his constituents strived for to obtain a better gain on America's economic and financial systems.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introduction to the context of the Great Depression and the formation of the New Deal and how FDR implemented it. Probably more economically informative rather than socially, focusing more on the legislative history of the era. Nevertheless great for a brief overview.