Highest recommendation! "The New Deal: A Modern History" by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik is an excellent, complete, thorough, fair and balanced history of the New Deal. The writing is easy to read and at times gripping.
Besides the Pulitzer Prize, the author previously won the Gerald Lobe Award for excellence in business and finance reporting, and he was awarded the Silver Gavel from the American Bar.
I think this history is the benchmark book on the Great Depression and New Deal, because I have read many books on the World War II and Great Depression era. The book is strong at detailing the energetic and multifaceted response by the Franklin Roosevelt administration to confront the economic disaster that had put millions of workers out of work before FDR took office, making history (with some messiness) as they went along.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's response to the Great Depression was pragmatic, sometimes experimental, sometimes borrowing from Republicans and sometimes from Democrats, sometimes messy, sometimes very politically charged, and occasionally contradictory. The New Deal was formulated by New Dealers like Frances Perkins, the first woman cabinet secretary and an architect of Social Security, Harold Ickes, a progressive Republican and leader of infrastructure investments, Harry Hopkins, a social worker and relief administrator, and others in the so-called "Brain Trust." All the New Deal initiatives are described exceptionally well in this book.
One word of caution: If you are looking for an easy read about Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, I suggest first starting with a good FDR biography, such as the award-winning and outstanding biography
FDR by Jean Edward Smith, because "The New Deal: A Modern History" does go a bit into the economics and policy details of the New Deal. It's easy reading for me, a history buff, but an FDR biography is more exciting for general readers, since his complete life was so fascinating (being rich, contracting polio, Eleanor, etc.) Then read this benchmark book on the New Deal.
This book explains how the policies, sometimes messy, came about, which was experimenting and trying to lift the stricken nation out of three long years of Depression under Herbert Hoover. After taking office, FDR said, "The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation." Hiltzik shows that some of the New Deal policies were created in a hectic way by the Roosevelt administration in response to the years-long national economic crisis and political winds, but the landmark long-term reforms were enacted carefully and have served America well. The New Deal permanently transformed the American economy and the relationship of government to the people.
Enduring legacies of the New Deal include Social Security, Security and Exchange Commission, FDIC, tens of thousands of infrastructure investments, unemployment insurance, rural electrification, FHA, Fed Reserve Board, Glass-Steagall Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, ending a flawed version of the gold standard that was strangling the money supply, and other landmark successes (and I would add FDR's GI Bill that came later in FDR's presidency). Hiltzik also details the mistakes FDR made, such as the price fixing as part of the National Recovery Administration and a gold buying scheme. This is a fair and thorough history.
The New Deal put 3 million people to work building extensive infrastructure projects. FDR said, "The only thing we have to fear is -- fear itself." Roosevelt built a close bond with Americans through his fireside chats over the radio, and the American people reelected FDR by massive landslides. Rarely has a president connected with so many Americans. FDR's first reelection was the largest electoral landslide of the 20th Century (as a percentage of total electoral votes) and the largest landslide ever except for George Washington and James Monroe. The American people approved of Roosevelt.
FDR was not an ideological socialist that some critics would have you believe today. He was pragmatic. FDR told the American people that they had to be careful not to give out dole and diminish hard work and the work ethic, and so he emphasized putting people to work. He was leery of government wasting money and, in one of his first actions, slashed the Federal budget. Ronald Reagan idolized FDR. Hiltzik says that FDR did not fully accept deficit spending as a way to stimulate the economy until the approach of World War II, because FDR was conservative about budgets and wanted only work projects that made business sense and gave people work until the crisis passed.
Hiltzik, a business news correspondent, explains the economics of the Great Depression in a way that is easy to understand. He cites the economic statistics for the years of the New Deal. After FDR took office, GDP grew at about 8% per year in four year, and the stock market nearly quadrupled. GDP growth was impressively strong year after year and the stock market skyrocketed each year. Unemployment improved but came down slowly from over 20% to about 9% is 1937. These economic statistics are important to learn the honest story of the New Deal. In contrast, recent biased attacks by others omit these important annual statistics and tell a misleading story. Why would these misleading critics not cite the GDP statistics for Roosevelt's first year in office? The stats during each of these years would refute their distorted stories of the New Deal. What really happened after Roosevelt took control? He pulled America out of the Great Depression in his first term. Check the GDP and stock market numbers for each year from 1932-1937. The New Deal stopped the downward spiral and brought about a mild recovery upward for several years, followed by a sharp "Roosevelt Recession" in his second term when Congress sharply slashed deficit spending and the money supply contracted due to the Fed requiring higher reserve requirements. The recession was quickly reversed with massive WWII military stimulus spending that fully ended the Depression in 1939.
Those wanting to read a more general biography of FDR and the New Deal and less of the detailed "sausage making" history of the New Deal should consider the award-winning and outstanding biography
FDR by Jean Edward Smith. Another good book on the New Deal is the award-winning
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal by William Leuchtenburg.
The author says the New Deal essentially came to an end in FDR's second term, which is the position taken by leading New Deal historians. The Fair Labor Standard Act was the last of the New Deal. However,
Conrad Black in his Roosevelt biography, called "a masterpiece" by the Economist, argues differently -- that there were four phases to the New Deal that included two smaller parts occurring later. FDR's entire presidency to 1945 was an extension of the New Deal, according to Black. (FDR's landmark GI Bill should be considered an extension of the New Deal philosophy.)
I would have liked if this book included even more about the enduring contributions of the New Deal in the years and decades that followed the New Deal years, such as the long-term stability created by the SEC, Glass-Steagall Act, FHA inventing insured 30 year mortgages for the broad middle class (home ownership skyrocketed in the post-war boom era from mostly a renter society in America), rural electrification, the massive infrastructure investments, with Eisenhower's interstate highway system an extension of that, GI Bill, etc. The New Deal changed the economic order forever, although with some temporary upheavals, affecting us today. America and the middle class were profoundly better in the decades after the New Deal than the decades before.
Also, FDR's administration made more New Deal-like progressive advancements during the years of WWII, 1941-1945. For example, Hiltzik's book accurately shows that the New Deal left out African Americans, because Southern Democrats held important leadership roles in Congress and FDR needed to keep his coalition together for enduring Democrat electoral success (that lasted almost 50 years). FDR was a master at judging the political winds and knowing how far he could push progressive advances. But Roosevelt policies changed dramatically during World War II when women and minorities were included like never before in American history (partly because of Eleanor Roosevelt's stubborn insistence). These Roosevelt policies in WWII were groundbreaking and created momentum for the Civil Rights movement later and the Brown decision by the Supreme Court (decided with several FDR appointees on the Bench). Read
Conrad Black's biography of Franklin Roosevelt or Doris Kearns Goodwin's award-winning
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II for coverage of FDR's presidency during World War II. Also,
A New Deal for the World: America's Vision for Human Rights covers the impact of FDR's post-war vision. The world changed after the war because of FDR (including the decline of colonialism).
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