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Reviews
| The Great Depression and The New Deal: A Very Short Introduction, by Eric Rauchway. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 150 pages. $9.95, paper.
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| The subtitle "A Very Short Introduction" on a history book may seem anathema to history students and teachers alike. This phrase may disturb students who are concerned about getting the most out of their tuition and teachers worried about finding substantive classroom materials. Eric Rauchway's addition to the Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University Press should put these fears to rest. The Great Depression and The New Deal packs plenty of background information and contemporary arguments about the interwar period into 150 pages. |
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Rauchway's approach to this oft-covered period in American history is surprisingly expansive for an economically sized book. The author uses the first three chapters to lay the groundwork for the economic, social, and political underpinnings of the Great Depression. Readers learn about the influence of World War I, Henry Ford's Model T, Herbert Hoover, and American agriculture on the Great Depression in the span of about 40 pages. Rauchway spends the remaining five chapters discussing the success and failures of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal without the rosy lens of sentimentality. |
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Rauchway's even-handed approach to Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt may be surprising to readers looking for a quick primer on this era. Hoover is given appropriate credit for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation that helped fund relief efforts during the first term of Roosevelt's presidency. Rauchway does not attribute the gilded sheen of heroism and virtue to Roosevelt that has become all too common in literature about the New Deal; rather, he shows Roosevelt as a shrewd pragmatist who was willing to experiment with power with the hopes that beneficial programs outweighed unseemly boondoggles. |
3
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There are several topics explored in The Great Depression and The New Deal that show the depths of "pragmatic experimentation" during the New Deal. Economist John Maynard Keynes is referenced throughout the book to provide contemporary insight into the virtues of the pre-World War I economy as well as support for deficit spending that would influence Roosevelt's late-period New Deal programs. Rauchway speaks at great length about the practical concern of earning a paycheck, as well as the stigma associated with relief without work in the 1930s. The author's passing references to the 1930s origins of HUAC as well as the Bretton Woods conference help set the table for the beginnings of the Cold War. |
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Rauchway's The Great Depression and The New Deal seems to fit best into higher level courses that use multiple books to cover the first half of the twentieth century. The material covered in the book may seem to skim the surface of this era, but issues of relief psychology and market manipulation are beyond the depths of most first-year students. It would be appropriate to use this book for senior seminars, comparative history courses, and graduate classes as early-semester primers on the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. |
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| Carroll University, Waukesha, Wisconsin |
Nicholas Katers |
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