The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Rauchway boils it down to 150 pages. He calls it: The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction. I call it required reading."--Laura Conaway, NPR's Planet Money
"Everybody's talking new New Deal these days... Eric Rauchway is all over this."-Paul Krugman, The New York Times
"This well written, informative and illustrated book sets the scene, introduces the analysis and paves the way for an informed debate from which we can--and should--learn much."--Andrew Dodgshon, Tribune (UK)

Product Description

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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195326342
• ISBN-13: 978-0195326345
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #200,438 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Depression and New Deal Discussed Concisely, August 25, 2008

By	Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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." (p.2) 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. Rauchberg points out, contrary to some opinion, that Hoover took measures, particularly late in his administration, designed to get the Federal government involved in combatting the Depression. Rauchberg 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. Rauchberg 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. Rauchberg argues that as the New Deal progressed it moved to a system of strengthening outsiders to economic or political power as a means of combatting 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. Rauchberg 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 revivial and for making necessary changes which preserved the American way of life.

Rauchberg 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. Rauchberg 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."(p. 131)

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, Rauchberg 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

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Concise Overview, June 29, 2008

By	R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

As a concise overview, this book is excellent. Rauchway covers the background of the Great Depression, its onset, and the major features of the New Deal in less than 130 pages of this small book. Rauchway presents the Great Depression as essentially a vicious downward economic cycle made possible by the destruction of the pre-WWI economic system, the nature of the postwar political/economic settlement, and American refusal to play the needed leadership role in postwar international affairs. This is followed by a concise description of the consequences of the depression and the inadequate response of the Hoover administration. Following the work of quite a few other historians, the New Deal is presented as a series of sometimes contradictory experiments to resuscitate the American economy, and in particular, maintain the major features of a capitalist economy. Rauchway in particularly good on the interaction, and sometimes synergy, between the economic and political goals of the successive Roosevelt administrations. Eventually, the New Deal would develop a 'countervailing power' strategy with significant regulation of the economy and use of Federal authority to empower individuals and interest groups who could oppose the power of business. With later success of the Roosevelt administrations in WWII, this approach became the basis of post-war liberal policy.
Rauchway is appropriately critical of the failings of the New Deal, some of which were unavoidable and hence inherent in the nature of the American political and social system. A important point that Rauchway omits is the background of many New Deal reforms, which were rooted in an earlier generation of Progressive era thought and reformism.
This book is written clearly and has an excellent bibliography.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great volume in a marvelous series of books, September 27, 2009

By	Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I've become completely addicted to Oxford University Press's Very Short Introduction series. I primarily get them to read at lunch (I usually read heavier books on my commute, but as I walk around doing my lunchtime chores -- yes, I read while I walk -- I like to carry these lighter books, and they make great back ups to my main book if I finish them). Just about every book that I've read in the series has been good and several of them very good. Only one or two have been bad.

This book provides a solid survey of the Great Depression and the New Deal. There have recently been a couple of exceptionally silly books that have argued that the New Deal actually extended the Great Depression. These books have done this by ignoring many of the facts and falsely attributing the 1937 recession to the New Deal rather than dramatically decreased federal spending. Rauchway neither ascribes more to the New Deal than it deserves nor denigrates it in ways that the fact will not support. He also presents a very balanced portrait of FDR. Roosevelt is perhaps my favorite president; over the years I've read nearly 30 books on his life and presidency. One of the most closely guarded secrets is that FDR was not a particularly liberal president, at least on economic matters. He had liberal ideals, in that he did not believe in trickle down theories and felt that public policy had to be crafted to benefit all Americans and not merely just a few at the top. He was actually an economic conservative, though he was also a pragmatist instead of an ideologue, which meant that he had no preconceived notions of what had to be done to help America get out of the catastrophe that has beset the nation.

The book does a fine job of highlighting many of the causes of the economic meltdown, explaining the international situation better than many such books. I think he was a bit stronger on the non-Wall Street causes, but perhaps that was intended as a corrective to many accounts that focus too heavily on the stock market. The book also does a very fine job of chronicling the alphabet soup of New Deal programs and the rationale behind each one. He also excels at explaining the nonideological character of the New Deal. In fact, the biggest opponents of the New Deal from both the Right and the Left were ideologues, who felt that on principle the crisis should be dealt with in one way or another. Roosevelt took a practical approach, trying a wide variety of things in order to ease the situation. If something didn't work, he abandoned it and tried something else. But he also strove to put into place a number of changes in our government and society that would safeguard the country from future catastrophes. Rauchway is very evenhanded in his treatment. He accurately shows Roosevelt as a president who resisted some of the larger changes instituted by Congress -- the FDIC is the most famous example -- while explains the context of some of FDR's least distinguished moments. For instance, he does a better job of explaining the context for FDR's court packing attempt, something rightfully regarded as one of his largest miscalculations. He doesn't exonerate FDR, but situates it historically and explains that other presidents, including his cousin Theodore, had contemplated similar alterations to the court. He also explains FDR's conservatism, something that many overlook. This came out in the particular way in which Social Security was funded; instead of a national pension as in all other advanced economies, we have something akin to insurance program into which we pay. He does not go into much detail into the so-called "Roosevelt Recession," which was caused when Roosevelt overestimated the health of the American economy and attempted to balance the budget too soon. As a result, the recovery was slowed down when federal spending was dramatically cut.

Many have correctly pointed out that the New Deal did not correct all of the problems created by the collapse of the economy from 1929 through 1932. Critics have usually missed the point, however. As Rauchway points out, the economy grew by between 8% to 10% nearly every year after FDR became president, a spectacular performance by any standard. The mood of the country improved dramatically with the programs that were enacted and citizens understood that the government was going to do all that it could to prevent the country from going to ruin. Unemployment, which did improve under the New Deal, would not completely recover until World War II, but there is little question that the New Deal was an effective response to the dire situation in the country.

This is a very fine introduction to the issues concerning the United States in the thirties. If one wished to delve more deeply into the subject, I would recommend William E. Leuchtenburg's FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT AND THE NEW DEAL 1932-1940. It provides a marvelous introduction to the period and the major issues involved, in greater detail than Rauchway is able to. There are also many superb biographies on FDR. There are two superb recent one-volume biographies, one by Jean Edward Smith and one by H. W. Brands. My favorite FDR biography is the stellar two-volume biography by James MacGregor Burns. There is also a superb three-volume history of the New Deal by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Of the making of great books on FDR and the New Deal, there is apparently no end.

One of my only complaints with the book is that it does not contain an annotated bibliography. One of the things that I love most about the books in this series are the bibliographies. I've bought and read a substantial number of books based on the various bibliographies in this series. I want to know the author's opinion on what I should read next. A bare list of books tells me little. This is a subject I know pretty well so I'm already familiar with a large number of the books on this subject, and David M. Kennedy's FREEDOM FROM FEAR, the Oxford History of the United States volume on this period, has a tremendous annotated bibliography. But I would have dearly loved Rauchway's opinion on what I should read next.