it happens again November 1, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
it is an interesting read, u will feel as if history is repeating itself today...let's hope not...
A Good Book..... May 31, 2008 2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a great explanation of the Great Depression, written with clarity and interest (although I wish the author had not used "very" as much as he did). It explores the differences between our two major parties. It reveals how the mistakes of the Reagan era led to today's mess. It points up the deficiencies of the W administration. I got extra copies to circulate.
looking for more history less bias May 4, 2008 4 out of 8 found this review helpful
You can tell this was written in 1983 and not by a Reagan fan. I was looking for a broad history of the great depression, and while the book overall did the trick in the first quarter of the book I read more about Reagan than Hoover or any other president between FDR and Reagan. Yes we get it that the author is looking to show Reagan and his policues as the worst president of the 20th century. What is interesting that the carter years are completely skipped. no mention of the highest interest rates or the effect of his policies. When I buy a history book, I am looking for the how and the why. If I want a partisan view I will by a political book. /in parts, this was a good book but no one can walk away from this book with out knowing that the author wishes to blame Reagan for the worst times since 1932. What is funny is that when facing unflattering parts of FDR or his wife, the auther chooses to say that this is not the place to mention such things. Was very disappointed in this book and will not be keeping it.
New Deal as Seen from the Reagan Era March 25, 2008 14 out of 19 found this review helpful
This book was written in 1983, in the early years of Ronald Reagan's presidency. It's very interesting to see how angry the Reagan fans are at reading it. Biased! they cry, and so it is... forthrightly biased against Reagan, but intelligently skeptical toward the alleged success of Keynsian solutions to the Depression. Critics of FDR today seem widely to assume that the New Deal was strictly a Keynsian operation; McElvaine takes pains to distinguish FDR's policies from Keynesian thinking. Roosevelt, says McElvaine, was never a thorough Keynsian.
Historiography is a leapfrog occupation; the history written in 1983 becomes the source material of 2007. Much better statistical analysis of data from the 1930s is now possible because of computers. Letters and hidden files from the 1930s are now available. Thus "we" think ourselves better positioned to know what was really happening than poor Robert McElvaine, who wrote his book without our telescopic hindsight. The most interesting material in this still widely read textbook, for me anyway, is found in the last chapter, titled Perspective. McElvaine was highly alarmed at the economic policies he foresaw Reagan instituting. Here's what he wrote:
Keynsianism had offered a temporary way out of the Depression, but by itself it could provide no permanent solution. The fundamental problem in the economy remained maldistribution of income. ...there were some significant changes in income distribution in the United States between 1929 and 1981. There were important reductions in the shares going to the top 5 percent and the top 20 percent. Most of these declines...took place during the Great Depression. ...the redistribution from the top fifth went mostly to the second and third fifths; to the middle class. ...Although the poorest Americans have not benefited greatly, it is reasonable to conclude that the redistribution from the richest to the middle-income brackets helped sustain purchasing power in the postwar years of relative prosperity. Ronald Reagan's 1981 imitation of Andrew Mellon's tax cuts favoring the rich reversed this beneficial trend, and did so quite intentionally.
Yes, one can see why the Reaganites would hate this book! Later, McElvaine declares that the real solution to the Depression that emerged from the New Deal and wartime spending was to return to the old-time American faith in more or less constant expansion. Two factors, he argues, have prevented a major depression in the postwar years: the Keysian 'skills' the government had learned to apply to recession and inflation, and the ability of the many programs left from the New Deal to work automatically "to counter economic downturns."
If McElvaine were to write a 16th chapter to his book today, He'd have a lot to gloat about as a prophet. Reaganomics sharply reversed the redistributive justice of the New Deal, transferring wealth and ownership to the richest of the rich from the potential earnings of the middle class, and doing nothing to preclude the re-emergence of a poverty class just as miserable - though not as numerous in percentage - as the breadline unemployed depicted on the cover of this book.
Bias masquerading as history August 2, 2007 9 out of 39 found this review helpful
This was an extremely disapointing book. Just plain silly!! At this late date all but the most doctrinaire of socialists agree that the policies advocated by both Hoover and FDR were ruinous from an economic standpoint. No one before or since has advocated raising taxes, raising the price of material and labor, and demonizing the business sector (to say nothing of the other myriad benighted policies and palatives) during an economic downturn. That is why both the duration and severity of the "Great" Depression of the 1930's are unprecedented in this country. Additionally, the author betrays his childish biases by consistantly abandoning his stated topic to attack the economic policies of the 1980's. What is the connection????????? Future generations will recognize FDR for what he was... A brilliant politician, dilettant demagogue who truely fooled most of the people most of the time.
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