Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsStarts stong, loses pace. A weak entry for the Pivotal Moment Series.
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2006
Rainbow's End, by Maury Klein could have been a good book. In fact, it should have been a great historical read about America during the Roaring Twenties, leading up to and precipitating the Crash and the Depression. But Klein falls far short and disappoints with this entry into the "Pivotal Moments in American History" published by the Oxford University Press. This volume seemingly couldn't decide whether to be decidedly research based or, as with others in this series, to be a narrative form "that can be read for pleasure and instruction by anyone with an interest in its subject", according to it editors, David Hackett Fischer and James M. McPherson.
The book's prologue "The Summer of Fun, 1929" is clearly its highlight, certainly a dubious distinction. "In the summer of 1929 much of America was on an artificial high. It was a high born not of drugs but of an illusion that the prosperity and the good times then being enjoyed were made of new miracle ingredients that would last forever." Klein paints a vivid portrait of life in America in his early pages but sadly does not follow along in that form.
Throughout the book the reader cannot help but think that this is more of a reporter giving much more detail than needed, literally day by day of the Dow and the New York Times Index, often in the absolute and without percentages so one gets a relative idea of what was going on. Additionally, and quite strangely, Klein doesn't weave into his writing the many causes of the Crash and also poorly differentiates between the Crash and the Depression. One gets the idea that if he were to take out long and seemingly unrelated passages such as one on Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson and much of the above mentioned ticker tape readings he would have had ample room to discuss not only the causes and effects of the Crash but also would have been able to maintain the narrative style in the beginning of Rainbow's End.
To Klein's credit he does a very good job with the Coolidge and Hoover administrations and in his discussions on the nascent stages of the Federal Reserve. He also drives home the point of a much smaller federal government role in the years prior to FDR and its lack of ability to "rescue" a calamitous market and the resultant depressed economy, "Federal purchase of goods and services totaled about 1.3 percent of GNP and federal construction a tiny 2 percent, hardly enough to serve as a prime stimulant".
Perhaps the saddest part of this writing is that, in its current form, much could be done to improve it. Little to no additional research is needed. Just a rewrite and more color and less droning on and on about redundant economic and market statistics. This book, in its research and obvious talents of its author, fails to make an interesting topic captivating to the reader. Clearly a laggard in this fabulous series.
