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Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes

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The diaries of Harold Ickes are one of the great documents of American history. Ickes was one of the leading lights of the New Deal and probably was one of the most decisive secretaries of interior of all time. The interior department was very much at the center of the New Deal (we think of it as the department that managed national parks, but in the 30s it was much more, overseeing most of the relief programs as well in the days before the departments of Housing and Urban development and Health and Human Services.

Ickes was also not a man to suffer fools or the pompous gladly. Unlike most diarists, Ickes was not a sort of wall flower figure quietly noting down the days events in a journal. Ickes was at the center of controversy and these journals bring alive the events of the New Deal like no others.

The Secret Diary, in both volumes, gives a detailed, day-by-day accounting of Ickes' work in the Roosevelt administration. Originally a bombshell of uncharacteristic bureaucratic frankness when first published, the diary has since become a top historical resource for FDR scholars and a model for today's political "tell-all" books. Complete copies will include a pamphlet listing the dozens of names mentioned.