Book Review

Canada and the United States

Robert H. Ferrell. The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge. (American Presidency Series.) Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 1998. Pp. xi, 244.

These two books, a collection of essays from a 1995 Library of Congress symposium and the latest in a notable series on the American presidency, invite and invigorate our reassessment of Calvin Coolidge and his times. The Library of Congress volume contains many but not all of the presentations from the symposium. No unifying theme or point of view links its dozen essays, and although they are profitable and even stimulating to read, the reader should not expect a panoramic view of the 1920s. An exclusive focus on Coolidge or a more comprehensive survey of major themes that characterized "the Coolidge Era" might have made for a more satisfying collection.	1
Some of the symposium's products are excellent. Paul Johnson's scintillating keynote address makes a persuasive case for a genuine Coolidge political philosophy, minimalist though it might be, and for a strategy of silence that Coolidge rode to success. Perhaps the most valuable contributions come from John Braeman and Lynn Dumenil, authors of separate bibliographical guides to the scholarly literature dealing with the 1920s. Braeman's essay on "polity" is better at combining an interpretive framework with comments on specific topics than Dumenil's title-by-title sketches of books on social and cultural themes, but both guides are worth exploring.	2
Among the better essays, Daniel J. Leab's linkage of Coolidge, Will Hays, and the movies of the 1920s is imaginative in concept and has insightful comments on Coolidge's peculiar personality and the transformation of the film industry during the decade. Robert H. Ferrell concentrates on Coolidge's temperament and approach to the presidency, skimming from such topics as his shyness and stubbornness to how he handled press conferences and wrote speeches. Into a perceptive account of Coolidge and Herbert Hoover's sometimes difficult relationship, George Nash weaves a perspicacious overview of Republican politics during the 1920s. Warren I. Cohen's short but skillful essay on "America and the World" in fact deals with the world except Europe, which is the exclusive focus of Stephen A. Schuker's later chapter. Cohen argues that the United States was hardly isolated during the 1920s but had abundant financial, cultural, and political involvement and influence around the globe. Schuker discusses how American foreign policy was conducted during the 1920s, as well as how America's growing economic power affected that foreign policy. America's failure to shoulder world economic leadership after World War 1, he concludes, was not a major cause of the Depression or the insecurity that resulted in renewed war in 1939. This division of foreign affairs between the two authors seems somewhat odd, but at least the reader gets a thorough treatment of the topic.	3
A similar pairing of essays on economic developments is less successful. Michael A. Bernstein dismisses other explanations for the Great Crash and the economic distress of the 1930s, then endorses the notion that by 1929 the American economy had reached maturity and stagnation. Gene Smiley's essay on income shares and income inequality contends that because tax avoidance among the very rich actually fell during the 1920s, their share of total income has been exaggerated, as has inequality in income. A single, comprehensive discussion of broader economic conditions and trends would have served the topic better than these narrowly focused essays.	. . .