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Book Review
| An Opportunity Lost: The Truman Administration and the Farm Policy Debate. By Virgil W. Dean. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006. xviii, 275 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-8262-1650-1.)
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| In An Opportunity Lost, Virgil W. Dean examines the farm policies of the Harry S. Truman administration. The book focuses on how Truman's Fair Deal failed to bring about large- scale change to United States agriculture. In particular, it investigates the administration's attempt to replace the price support program with a more efficient program of direct payments to farmers. |
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The book is divided into nine chapters. Chapter 1 provides historical background on the evolution of the federal government's intervention in American agriculture. Dean correctly points to World War I as the watershed event that marked the beginning of federal involvement in agriculture. He also notes that the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), passed during the Great Depression, formed the foundation of many modern-day farm price- support programs of the federal government. Chapter 2 introduces some of the key figures in Truman's administration and Congress who played important roles in agricultural policy. That examination, along with chapter 3, shows some of the political obstacles in formulating a long-term policy for farmers. |
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