Book Description
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan's critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, "the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect" (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, "The Worst Hard Time" is "arguably the best nonfiction book yet" (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature.
Customer Reviews:
It's Good --- but is it National-Book-Award good?.......2007-10-16
I liked this book. For the most part.
It's an exciting account of an amazing and horrific time in the nation's history, and its descriptions of the dust storms as they came in over the prairies are absolutely terrifying--but I think it's far from the great book that it could have been.
The story, of course, is one of the great stories of American history, and will no doubt enthrall any readers unfamiliar with the 1930s Dust Bowl. But the book fails, I think, in bringing across the full scope of it all, focusing so intently on handful of towns and counties (and always forgetting to remind us what states these towns are in) that it feels like more like a gathering of a number of isolated occurrences. It also fails to provide all the facts that the story begs to contain. And it kind of peters off toward the end, as if the author just grew tired of the subject.
Is this a good book? Sure. I enjoyed it. But would I have given it the National Book Award? No. And is it the best book on the subject? No, again. I prefer the book "Dust Bowl," by Donald Worster, which I found to be much more thorough and vivid in its treatment of the subject.
Outstanding.......2007-10-10
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
This is an outstanding book! I had no idea how bad the Dust Bowl was. I was so impressed with the book that I bought a copy for each of my 3 siblings.
Unbelievable!.......2007-10-03
This book was fantastic. Although the majority of books I read are fiction, I'm not hesitant to read good non-fiction. This book was so well written that it reads like a taut novel. Along with Seabiscuit and The Devil in the White City, it is one of the best historical books I've read. Very well researched and thought out. You almost can't believe that this could have actually happened. You feel like you know the characters, and you certainly root for them even though you seemingly know how it will turn out. I would recommend this book to any avid reader - fiction or non-fiction.
Hopefully, we will learn from our past.......2007-10-02
This is an important event in US history that is so relevant today, supplying more fuel for both side of the ongoing debate on global warming.
I found it a bit difficult to stay connected to the characters. In spite of that, the story remained interesting, showing the plight and hardships endured by the generation before us, and bringing us an awareness of our fragile ecosystem.
Eye Opening and Hard to Put Down.......2007-09-25
A must read for history buffs and readers in general. Information places the midwest, its people, and past in an entirely different light of appreciation. (Absolutely Facinating)!
Product Description
The Great Bust Ahead is a concise, straight to the point short book laying out in stark terms the case for a coming depression of historically unprecedented magnitude. It will be worse than the 1930s, beginning nominally in 2012, but perhaps as early as 2009-2010 and lasting up to thirteen years. Centered on hard fact demographics, the book boldly claims that the data presented are so irrefutable, that the outcome predicted by the book is equally as irrefutable. The compelling proof presented accurately accounts for the detailed trend of the economy from 1920 to today (something never before accomplished), and projects out to 2030. The book is very easy to read and understand, and requires no prior knowledge of economics. Down to earth things the average person can do to prepare for what is coming are covered. A summary of the catastrophic domestic social and international consequences is offered.
October 2007 Update: In 2002 when this book was published, in addition to the massive depression beginning around the end of the decade, it forecast:
1. The economy, as reflected by the DJIA, would resume its upwards march in late 2002 or 2003.
This is exactly what happened.
2. The DJIA would have a snapback to 13,000 to 14,000 and the FTSE to 6,000 to 7,000 by 2004, but delayed possibly by wars/politics/terrorism/scandals.
This is exactly what has happened. Although the full snapback has been delayed for the reasons described, the DJIA has now closed over 14,100 and the FTSE over 6,700.
3. The DJIA returns from 2003 to 2012 would average a historically long-term normal of 7% to 8%. So far, with the delayed full snapback for the reasons described, DJIA actual returns have averaged a more modest 5.8%, as would be expected.
4. Interest rates would increase from 2003 onwards.
This is exactly what has happened.
Customer Reviews:
It is just an indicator!.......2007-09-12
Everyone is forgetting that the book is talking about a correlated indicator for the DJIA. There are many things that drive an economy and make things happen like the weakening dollar, monstrous deficits, the Federal Reserve, cheap credit and the housing market bubble, peak oil, etc. These are some of the things that move the DJIA, NOT just demographics. The fact that the 45-54 age group correlates to the DJIA is very interesting and CAN be used to predict what MAY happen to the DJIA in the long term. Demographics of the 45-54 age groups are a strong force pushing the markets, but not the only thing. Even the author says that some things like "the New Deal, the pill and the NASDAQ" affect the correlation with this indicator. The politicians and Wall Street are not going to lie down and let this monstrous depression happen without a fight. They my not win the War, but where the DJIA goes in the future has not been case in stone. The future highs and lows of the DJIA are still unpredictable.
The book is a high school treatise on this relationship and to the economically ignorant is a real eye opener. Most economists know about this force, but the key is what to do about it and when. The author's advice to get out of the markets by 2010 is silly at best. We are now in September of 2007 and the housing market bubble burst is probably the beginning of the down turn of the markets. Wait until 2010 to protect your assets and you will far less assets to protect. The author's advice to sell your home and rent and plow your money into bonds is simplistic at best. Investing in gold, foreign currencies, TIPS etc. to protect your assets are other stratigies that are not addressed. We are all speeding towards this economic depression, but the answers to when it will happen and what to do about protecting your assets is NOT even close to being addressed by this book. The book is $8.95 and you get what you pay for, "a wakeup call for the economically ignorant". Read the book and move onto a more advanced book for a better in depth discussion on economics and your money like "The Second Great Depression (Paperback) by Warren Brussee (Author)". I do agree that a lot of pain is ahead for the world.
Not Bad But Too Short and Too Extreme.......2007-08-22
Let me start by saying that this is a pretty good book for the price and if you don't know what is going on in the economy. The problem is that the book has very limited data to back up the predictions. If you are going to make huge predictions you had better justify it with a lot of credible data that has been referenced. As well, some of the predictions are just too extreme. However, all of these shortcomings aside, the author provides a nice short treatment on what will most likely occur; just not to the extent he has presented in my opinion. Of course, opinions are like debt in America - everyone has their own!
A much more useful book in my opinion is "Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble." It not only shows you many different ways to profit from the current bubble collapse, but it also shows a lot of detail about the economy and how to profit from America's overall credit bubble. Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble
Interesting theory but..........2007-07-09
This book is short and easy to read. The author has an interesting concept that the stock market follows the number of Americans at their peak buying age. His graphs and explanations on modifying factors make everything fit. I agree that some correction of our economy (inflation, recession, or worse) is likely in the future, but I feel other factors (energy issues, our national debt, terrorism, etc.) will come into play that he has not taken into account. I also don't agree with his investment suggestions and feel they may be reckless.
If you're concerned about possible bad times ahead, this is one book that may helpful, but I better liked the reasoning and proposals on what to do in Stephen Leeb's book The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs 200 Dollars a Barrel.
Excellent Read.......2007-05-14
Pros:
1. Brief: to the point, no fluff book(let)
2. Logical: Numbers support theory all along
3. Simple: Easy to understand
4. Value: Could save your shirt
Cons:
1. May sound too negative
2. May not consider all factors into forecasting
Pretty interesting read.......2007-05-12
This book and the argument that it lays out is pretty eye-opening. It shows you, through logical argument, how the demographics of our country will impact our coming future economic health. With these baby-boomers greying and falling from their peak spending years, our country will experience a downshift that will really challenge our concept of prosperity... A must read!
Book Description
The twenties and thirties witnessed dramatic changes in American life: increasing urbanization, technological innovation, cultural upheaval, and economic disaster. In this fascinating book, the prize-winning historian David Kyvig describes everyday life in these decades, when automobiles and home electricity became commonplace, when radio and the movies became broadly popular.
Customer Reviews:
Not very satisfied.......2007-01-17
Last time I could chose free freight, but this time no free freight.
Not so much daily lives.......2007-01-04
My real interest in this book was to learn how ordinary people coped with life in a great depression. What interests me is in finding out how certain parts of society experienced it as I am sure the impact varies greatly.
This book - despite its title - clearly fails to answer this. Sure it tells me some of the reasons around the boom and bust, and some statistics on unemplyment, etc. But what I really wanted was the 'how they lived their lives' aspect that the title and blurb teased me with.
Despite my annoyance, I can't give this a 1 star (which is what it is worth to me) since it is a well written book and covers the topic well.
Informative.......2006-01-05
I wanted a book that give accurate information about life during the 1920's and 1930's. This book definitely does that, but I felt like I was back in history class in high school. I found myself skimming over a lot of it because there was so much detailed information. And I hate to sound like a third grader, but I would have liked to have seen more photos. This book is great if you have to give a report or gather historic information, but I found it a bit tedious to read during my lunch hour.
A broad overview laced with fascinating details.......2005-12-07
The automobile and electricity are so common in today's society that it is difficult to imagine life without them. It is easy to forget that at one time these things we take for granted were new innovations that altered every aspect of life. In Kyvig's thoughtful examination of American daily life through the 1920s and 1930s, he explores the innovations that changed daily life and the varying speeds at which changes were accepted. He begins his enlightening examination with a discussion of daily life in the 1920s, prior to many of the changes he later discusses. Then he smoothly transitions into a discussion of the technology that completely changed the lives of contemporary Americans in both rural and urban settings, including the automobile, electricity, radio and cinema. Kyvig's clever and insightful portrayal demonstrates the full implications of technology. For example, he shows how the automobile made it possible for people live farther from work, led to the school consolidation movement and changed dating rituals as teenagers ventured farther than their own front porches with their dates for the first time.
His discussion on the Great Depression, however, changes its focus to a discussion of government adminstration and programs, and is not as fascinating or focused on "daily life" of common people as the rest of his book.
This book was enjoyable to read and covered a variety of aspects on the daily lives of Americans, so it would have wide appeal for a number of readers. It is backed by solid scholarly research, and includes fascinating pictures that add to the enjoyment of the narrative. Kyvig has a true talent for writing, and this is apparent through reading his book. His study should not be overlooked as just another book on daily life in the 1920s and 1930s - it is an all-encompassing study that provides insight into a number of aspects of daily life. It also provides a detailed, fascinating history of the development of the automobile and its impacts on life.
Very general, but worth the read.......2005-05-31
Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940, by David E. Kyvig, traces the developments in American culture and lifestyle during this critical period. Using US Census Data, Kyvig calls attention to the demographic changes that occurred over these dynamic twenty years, one of the strong points of this book. Among the technological developments discussed are the automobile, electricity, radio and movies. There are two chapters devoted to the day-to-day aspects of life during that time covering such topics as food, fashion, hygiene, courtship, etc. Kyvig also discusses the impact of the Great Depression, the New Deal and the expanded role of government during that era.
As a former history teacher, this book reminds me strongly of an expanded version of the typical US History chapter covering this time period. It isn't terribly deep, but does provide a solid overview. It is well-written, easy to read, and is a good starting point for people interested in the time period (or for students who need help for a research paper). Those of us who want more detailed information will need to look elsewhere.
Book Description
The study of two demagogues, whose vast popularity explains much about Depression-era America.
Customer Reviews:
A Fair Assessment of Controversial Figures.......2007-07-24
One of the things I've found in reading American history, and especially in books written about the era of the Great Depression, is that President Roosevelt had the greatest smear operation in American History. This operation has carried on to this day, 60+ years after his death. The "establishment" historians are merely foot maidens of the Roosevelt reputation, burnishing the legend of his greatness, overlooking his ineffectiveness both in dealing with the depression and the war, and smearing anyone who ever dared to question the legacy of this supposedly greatest of 20th century Americans. It is an operation that the Kims of North Korea could surely envy.
Two cases in point are Father Coughlin and Huey Long. Another is Charles Lindbergh. These men had the gaul, in their day, to oppose Roosevelt. Thus they have come down to us in our day as Fascists, anti-semites, Nazi sympathizers and Little Hitlers. None of these men was flawless. As a matter of fact, each had grievous faults. Long was a corrupt politician. Coughlin was a brilliant speaker who fell prey to his own over-emotionalism and then easily into rancor, both in politics and with his brethren in the church and who then stooped to the bitter personal attacks and bigotry that cost him the respect of general audiences. Lindbergh was naive and often filled with bloated self-importance; he was short sighted and illogical in many of his views and inarticulate in expressing them. Yet each in their time raised legitimate concerns with the policies of Roosevelt and, I think, were more or less sincere in their protests against the direction FDR was taking this country.
Personally, I think the ideas of Long, Coughlin and Lindbergh were purely crack-pot and founded on ignorance of basic economics and politics. Proof of this is the continued popularity of their ideas (maybe under a different name and guise) among the kooks of the modern lunatic fringe like, say, the Larouchites. These ideas would have been disastrous to the country had they been followed. Yet this is supposed to be a free country where political dissent is allowed; but because Coughlin, Long and Lindbergh dared to question the motives and actions of the idol of the American left, they have been eternally smeared through our history. Looking at this result, I would be moved to ask who were the real fascists: the Coughlins, Longs and Lindberghs; or FDR and his brain trust, and the lap dogs, both in the media of the day, and in the history books since, who have smeared and mischaracterized his opponents and who attempted to use the powers of government to intimidate them into silence.
Which makes this book different and admirable. The author reports on Long and Coughlin with all their warts and doesn't try to conceal any of their weaknesses; however, he is fair to them. He doesn't try to make every disagreement with FDR into evidence of Fascism. He connects the Long & Coughlin programs to legitimate public grievances and shows how wide spread among the public were the feelings that Long & Coughlin expressed. The book is not overly long, yet it is meticulously researched. And though I think, from reading it, that the author is an FDR admirer (just a feeling--I don't really know), he allows FDR's opponents the benefit of the doubt in the sincerity of their opposition.
My own opinion is that Long & Coughlin (especially Coughlin) underestimated the popular power of the presidency. I believe the people, in general, WANT to like the president, whoever he is. We see now, even with a president as unpopular as Bush, how hard it is to balk him, and how easily he has thwarted his congressional opponents in their efforts to reverse his policies. He retains, even in his lowest days, strong support from about 1/3rd of the population, and this is usually enough to maintain a hold on the direction of national policy.
We saw how Clinton held on to enough support, through all his sordid scandals, to frustrate his foes; how long LBJ held a blank check despite his mismanagement of Viet Nam, only losing grip at the very end; and even how such a boob as Carter retains a good measure of public popularity, even after his miserable performance as president and his almost 30 years of asinine behavior after leaving the White House.
FDR was completely ineffective in dealing with the depression. Every one of his programs, and every effort of the New Deal were failures. His value was mainly as a propagandist and cheerleader. He made the people feel better and they loved him and supported him for his good cheer and they elected him four times. He was a brilliant publicist and public speaker. His radio addresses were models of simplifying complicated issues without sereming to speak down to his audience. This was enough to cloud, in the mind of his listeners, the effectiveness (or, rather, ineffectiveness) of his administration.
The popularity of a Coughlin was transient and that of Long was more or less local (though it would have been interesting to see, had he lived, how far he could have gone in challenging FDR following the economic reversals of 1938, then what his stance would have been in the war debates of 1939-40, and if he could have made greater national inroads at this time).
A nation of people elect a president. They vote for him. To repudiate him, to turn against him, means admitting a mistake in electing him. Hence they cling to him long after he has proven a failure, an incompetent or a devious scoundrel. FDR was all of these, but neither Coughlin or Long could erode the people's faith in him because the people want to love their president and to hold on to the idea that their votes for him showed sagacity and wisdom.
Dissident Movements in America - fascinating topic.......2006-07-29
Praise has been heaped on Alan Brinkley's book in the past, and after reading it, I fully concur with the accolades that past reviewers have granted to this book.
Brinkley sets the tone for his book from the title - "Voices of Protest". He focuses the book on the two main characters (and I do mean characters) present in the subtitle - Huey P. Long and Father Charles E. Couglin.
Brinkley treats us to a brief biographical sketch of each of these flamboyant and ebulent personalities. Long in his silk pajamas receiving a German envoy, and Coughlin stripping down from his clerical garb to a sweat soaked politician are just a couple of the many images that grab the reader during the progression of this discourse.
After explaining who these men were, he goes into their social & political movements - a fascinating tale of Long's "Share Our Wealth" plan, and an equally rich telling of Coughlin's "Golden Hour of the Little Flower". Brinkley has chosen the title Voices of Protest because both of these movements became major political dissident movements in Depression-era America.
Brinkley does a fantastic job of explaining, in historiographic terms, why these movements gathered such steam and were able to become massive social movements rather than just political fodder. In addition to detailing these two major oppositional voices to FDR's new deal, Brinkley also gives us a chapter on other movements that were equally critical of the New Deal, but not nearly as widespread.
I found it especially interesting how Brinkley explained that Long was the primary reason why both of these movements flourished - after his assassination in 1935, both movements really seemed to fall apart.
I enjoyed this book tremendously - it gives new insight into the way that political dissonance took hold in the 1930's and what a big part of American society these two political movements became.
The Follies of Charismatic Leadership.......2006-01-19
On the eve of the Great Depression the great Spanish existential and political philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset published The Revolt of the Masses. In it he predicted the rise of mass man -- undifferentiated, unanchored and unthinking citizens of modern, western societies attached to none of the traditional sources of community, which were being destroyed by capitalism anyway. For Ortega y Gasset, these folks all too easily moved to charismatic, emotional leadership to give meaning in their political lives. Twentieth century thinkers like Dwight MacDonald and Hannah Arendt have explored some of the implications of Ortega y Gasset's work, noting its eerie forershadowing of Nazism, Fascism and Stalinism. American historians such as Richard Hofstadter, meatime, found in American radicalism the same linkages between charismatic leadership and mass man. In Hofstadter's telling this phenomenon folded within the tradition of radical critiques of American capitalism.
Hofstadter's works, most notably The Age of Reform, were pretty critical of the causes of the American attraction to radical politics, such as it was -- that attraction was fostered by emotional anxieties that all too often morphed into nostalgic, irresponsible, politically conservative, anti-Semitic, racist movements.
Alan Brinkley clearly relies of Hofstadter quite a bit, but with a much more sympathetic treatment of American mass politics and its causes. For him, the anxieties were fully justified. He focuses on the alternative visions offered by Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s to President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Brinkley argues both men attracted large followings accross the nation by the use of the radio and mass-circulation print publications. By 1935 their combined popularity was enough to scared the hell out of the Democratic Party and President Roosevelt, with the result that FDR pushed through the Second New Deal in the run-up to his 1936 re-election effort. Brinkley argues that Long and Coughlin emphasized redistribution of wealth and economic justice for the common man/consumer, not the New Deal concern with "stabilizing business" and "restoring business confidence." In a sense we have these two rabble-rousers to thank for Roosevelt's turn to the left in 1935 in the form of specific public policies such as the Social Security Act (which Long opposed for some technical federalist reasons, actually).
As part of his argument, then, Brinkley streses the positive, substantive aspects of Long's and Coughlin's message over the psychological anxieties stressed by Hofstadter and his scholarly followers. In what is probably the best chapter in Voices of Protest, "The Dissident Ideology," Brinkley connects the Long/Coughlin program with the anti-modern, anti-urban, anti-capitalistic radical political tradition informing American protest politics, from Thomas Jefferson to Orestes Brownsen to William Jennings Bryan.
Long's Share Our Wealth scheme of income redistribution thus, in Brinkley's telling, represented a geniune, substantive response to the economic hardships of the 1930s and their root cause -- not enough consumer power!
This is good as far as it goes I suppose. But Brinkley certainly could have emphasized more the rank irresponsibility of Long and Coughlin -- they must have known, for example, that simplistic schemes such as Share Our Wealth had zip chance of success. Even if they could succeed in the abstract, they could never be implemented logistically as Brinkley notes in passing. As Voices of Protest makes clear, Coughlin and Long -- despite, or perhaps because of, their manic energies -- had no patience or desire to construct meaningful, sophisticated, sustained politices to help their constituiencies. Long, for example, had no interest in Senate business for most of his term in that august body, no desire to manipulate the institution (a la LBJ for example) and form effective coalitions to bring about meaningful change.
This is a beautifully written, beautifully constructed narrative. Brinkley is a fine heir to popular/scholarly narrative/analytical history in the tradition of Commager, Nevins and Schlesinger. Voices of Protest covers alot of ground already well plowed by masters such as T. Harry Williams in his biography of Long. But Brinkley adds alot more archival sources and fascinating letters from the common people -- mass men -- who Long/Coughlin attracted. But for reformers looking for historical models on which to base effective, modern, sophisticated methods for political and economic change, they'll have to look elsewhere than the examples of Charles Coughlin and Huey Long. I don't think Brinkley emphasizes that quite enough and himself falls for their charismatic qualities -- a serious shortcoming in an otherwise fine book
an impressive piece of history..........2005-06-22
I marvel at the depth and range written in Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression by Alan Brinkley. Without very much firsthand information from Huey Long and Charles Coughlin, Alan Brinkley was able to portray the lives of these two unlikely figureheads of the Great Depression. From their small town beginnings to their national prominence to their movement's downfalls, Huey Long's and Father Coughlin's stories are on display for the history buff or even the average reader.
The first three chapters are devoted to the rise of Huey Long. Starting in Louisiana, he gets his first opportunity to shine in the public limelight as a railroad comissioner. His grass roots campaigning and fight for the lower classes changed the landscape of Louisiana politics from a state voting along religious lines to one voting along economic lines. As governor and a senator of Louisiana, Huey Long continuously fought for the redistribution of wealth and the rights of the local institutions. Rising to national prominence after his campaigning for Hattie Caraway who was the first woman to be elected to a full term in the Senate, Long used his newfound popularity to influence American politics during the Great Depression like no other except for one (Coughlin of course). From his influence on the Presidential Election of 1932 to his Share Our Wealth Plan, Voices of Protest contains all of the information one would want to know about Huey Long's rise and sudden fall after he was assassinated.
After Alan Brinkley discusses Huey Long's rise, he delves into the rise of Father Charles Coughlin. Surrounded by Catholicism from a very young age, Charles Coughlin was destined to become a priest. After getting through seminary, he finally received a new parish in Royal Oaks, a suburb of Detroit. Coughlin was always thought of as a great orator, but even that wasn't enough to pay for the increasing debt incurred by the new parrish. To make money for the church, Coughlin went to the local radio station to use his special talents as an orator. His radio sermons were soon heard across the nation. His influence with the radio was tremendous, causing him to begin a series of politically based chats (starting with his dislike of communism) that would throw him into the political arena as a man of influencial capabilities. Coughlin's tumultuous relationship with Franklin Roosevelt and his National Union for Social Justice are a couple more of the many topics discussed in this section of Vioces of Protest.
Alan Brinkley then moves on to discuss the similarities of Huey Long's and Charles Coughlin's movements, along with their relation to other movements (Socialist, Progressive, Communist) of the time and the political forces that they each, in their own right, become. Alan Brinkley also touches on each of their efforts towards organization in their respective parties and discusses in depth the followers of each's movements, including some alliances that were created solely for Long's and Coughlin's advancement politically or for others advancement. Finally, Alan Brinkley brings Huey Long's and Charles Coughlin's stories to an end with their eventual downfall and also elucidates on the aftermath of those downfalls.
There are two main quotes I would like to share here that I enjoyed as I read Voices of Protest. The first is on page 216 when Alan Brinkley discusses the uneasy alliances, and it is as follows: "Were these many protest movements to unite into a single force, they might be capable of toppling the entire structure of traditional party politics." The second is on page 243 when Brinkley discusses the downfalls of Long and Coughlin, and it is as follows: "Far more troubling for the crusades Long and Coughlin were preparing was a single, debilitating weakness: inability to wean their followers from Franklin Roosevelt." Both of these quotes represent hom much political power Long and Coughlin could have had and how much political power Franklin Roosevelt actually had. It is impressive to think about and enjoyable to read about, so I would highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone. Everyone enjoy!
Fascinating look at dissident America, circa 1930s.......2004-01-14
In many ways the Great Depression marked a turning point for American society. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies significantly altered the scope and function of the federal government through a host of social programs engineered to revive the ailing economy. A restructuring of the banking system, restrictions on the stock markets, an increase in the size of the bureaucracy, and the development of Social Security were just a few of the changes wrought by the administration. Despite the various panaceas proposed and enacted by Roosevelt's government, the economic slump doggedly persisted year after year until World War II provided jobs for millions of out of work Americans. Roosevelt and his advisors were not the only people trying to cure the country of its economic ills, however. During the early and mid 1930s, several dissident social movements exploded onto the American scene promising an end to the Depression. Historian Alan Brinkley examines two of the biggest of these movements in "Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression."
The first 142 pages of "Voices of Protest" summarizes the life, rise, and various activities of Louisiana politician Huey Long and Catholic priest and radio personality Charles Coughlin. If you know a great deal about these two fascinating figures, you could probably skip these sections and not miss out on a great deal. Brinkley discusses Long's early life in Winn Parish, a Louisiana county with a long history of radical dissent dating back to the era of Populism. Arguing that this background imbued Long with a fondness for the common man, Brinkley outlines Huey's rise to power through the governorship of Louisiana and his eventual move into the United States Senate. Long was a corrupt politician who ran his state like a personal fiefdom, even after he went to Washington. Huey's political machine controlled every government job in the state, from the highest to lowest positions, and the man made ample use of this power to pack the state government with allies who would do his bidding. By the time the Senator proposed his "Share Our Wealth" palliative, he had an eager eye on the presidency. Long's plans for the country died with him when an assassin's bullet felled the Senator in the Louisiana Statehouse in 1935.
Charles Coughlin grew up in Canada and eventually joined the priesthood, moving to Royal Oak, Michigan in the 1920s. When his new church needed to raise funds to pay off a diocesan loan, he started a small radio program on WJR in Detroit. At first, the program consisted of short, harmless sermons. With the start of the Depression, Coughlin's broadcasts swiftly assumed political dimensions. His voice, described by many as one of the most arresting sounds ever heard on the airwaves, rapidly increased the size of his audience. As the donations poured in Coughlin expanded his radio network into a virtual empire. By the mid 1930s he was one of the most prominent figures in American society, a man looked up to by millions and a frequent guest at the Roosevelt White House. The priest and the president soon fell out over several issues, and Coughlin took his revenge on Roosevelt by forming the National Union for Social Justice and its attendant political branch, the Union Party, to unseat the president in the 1936 elections. The priest failed, and in a sign of decreasing popularity and bitterness he wholeheartedly embraced anti-Semitism and pro-German sympathies before the Catholic Church forced his retirement from public life in the early 1940s. Coughlin died in obscurity in 1979.
"Voices of Protest" takes off with chapter seven. Brinkley adroitly and convincingly analyzes the Long and Coughlin movements, explaining how the two men amassed such huge audiences with their populist rhetoric. The Depression, argues Brinkley, exposed the inherent flaws in a fundamental economic/social shift that had been going on in America for decades. The centralization and bureaucratization of business and government threatened traditional American ideas about the importance of localized society. When a stock market disaster in New York City caused workers in Lincoln, Nebraska or Des Moines, Iowa to lose their jobs, people worried anew about big business and power held in the hands of an anonymous few thousands of miles away. Long and Coughlin played on these fears by proposing programs that would restore power to local communities and the individual. Their programs ultimately failed because the economic move to centralization had already gone on for far too long. Additionally, the two men's ideas contained seeds of contradiction. In an effort to restore a traditional life highlighting locality and the individual, Long and Coughlin proposed big government schemes as a means of achieving their goals. The attempt to turn Share Our Wealth and the National Union for Social Justice into nationwide political organizations failed because of this focus on localization and an inability on the part of the two men to address the core issue of the problems they attacked, namely economic centralization.
The rest of "Voices of Protest" looks closely at the organization and followers of the Long and Coughlin organizations, other dissidents operating in the 1930s, and whether Long and Coughlin were American fascists. There are a few problems with the book. I think the author fails to strongly stress the positive aspects of these movements. For example, Brinkley barely mentions that these movements brought millions of Americans into the political life of the country at a time when participation was enormously important. Moreover, the dissident movements in the United States undoubtedly pushed Roosevelt to create important pieces of legislation during his second term as president. Social Security, for example, was an attempt to co-opt Francis Townsend's old age pension plan. Still, "Voices of Protest" is a winner that every person interested in 20th century American history should read.
Amazon.com
First published in 1970, this classic of oral history features the voices of men and women who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s. It includes accounts by congressmen C. Wright Patman and Hamilton Fish, as well as failed presidential candidate Alf M. Landon, who recalls what it was like to be governor of Kansas in 1933:
Men with tears in their eyes begged for an appointment that would help save their homes and farms. I couldn't see them all in my office. But I never let one of them leave without my coming out and shakin' hands with 'em. I listened to all their stories, each one of 'em. But it was obvious I couldn't take care of all their terrible needs.
The book includes also the perspectives of ordinary men and women, such as Jim Sheridan, who took part in the 1932 march by World War I veterans to petition for their benefits in Washington, D.C., where they were repelled by army troops led by General Douglas MacArthur. Or Edward Santander, who was a child then: "My first memories come about '31. It was simply a gut issue then: eating or not eating, living or not living." Studs Terkel makes history come alive, drawing out experiences and emotions from his interviewees to the degree few have ever been able to match.
Book Description
Studs Terkel's classic history of the Great Depression.
In this unique re-creation of one of the most dramatic periods in modern American history, Studs Terkel recaptures the Great Depression of the 1930s in all its complexity. The book is a mosaic of memories from those who were richest to those who were most destitute: politicians like James Farley and Raymond Moley; businessmen like Bill Benton and Clement Stone; a six-day bicycle racer; artists and writers; racketeers; speakeasy operators, strikers, and impoverished farmers; people who were just kids; and those who remember losing a fortune.
Hard Times is not only a gold mine of information—much of it little known—but also a fascinating interplay of memory and fact, showing how the Depression affected the lives of those who experienced it firsthand, often transforming the most bitter memories into a surprising nostalgia.
Customer Reviews:
Book review.......2007-05-09
Book was never received and four inquiries to book dealer were ignored. I gave it one star because there was no zero or less.
Not great, but still very good........2007-03-09
This is the second book by Terkel I've read, the other being his superlative "The Good War". Like that book, it is a joy to read, and it was often hard to put down. He usually opens his interviews with just enough exposition to set up a scene, and then lets his subjects talk. And, do they! The personalities of each come through such that you feel as if you're sharing the room with them, an experience that is the more poignant for the realization that most of the people in this book are long-dead, taking their stories with them.
Nonetheless, the book has its weaknesses. Though the Great Depression is by definition an extremely broad subject, I never felt quite like I was getting a good "slice of life" of the times. For instance, there seem to be a disproportionate number of interviews with former Communists and socalists; though their movement was powerful during the Thirties, one may get the idea that they were more common than they actually were--especially since, as one reviewer noted, much of the book is set in and around Chicago. On the whole, it's a less gripping text than "The Good War"; reading that book felt like an awakening, while this one will reveal little to those with a working knowledge of the Depression-era U.S.
All that said, I'm glad I read it, and still recommend it for anyone interested in this complex and unsettling period of American history.
Informative. But It Dragged........2005-08-12
There is undeniable value in recording the memories and perspectives of people who have lived through something as remarkable as the Great Depression. The Internet of the future may provide the best possible compilation of such raw materials: only then may we see video and hear audio of the actual event, culled from tape recordings and home movies of the 1970s and before, and from film reels of the 1920s and after. Compared to resources like those, the relatively brief excerpts that Studs Terkel offers in this book cannot help but feel tailored, managed, and limiting.
I say the Internet of the future may be the ultimate resource. But in an important sense, that is exactly wrong. The ultimate resource would have been to have lived during those times -- to have experienced the event firsthand, and to have interviewed people and recorded information as it was unfolding. Do we, indeed, obtain a more compelling, a more visceral impression of the Great Depression by reading these timeworn memories, from the 1960s, of events that had taken place some 30 years earlier?
In some ways, no decade in the 20th century could have been farther away from the 1930s than were the 1960s. We had newfound suburban materialism; the race to the Moon; John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Great Society; LSD; rebellious youth and college as one's real home; American global supremacy; Vietnam and the Cold War. We were *so* far removed from the 1930s, by then. When Americans looked back from the later decade to the earlier one, they could not help but do so through very colored lenses. The values of the 1960s -- the things that people would tend to speak about, in the 1960s -- did visibly flavor the way that Terkel's interviewees spoke about their distant past.
Terkel's work is not history. It is a compilation of raw materials that a historian could use for some purposes. No doubt the historian would have to work through heaps of old material that might frequently repeat itself or express the same general impressions, just as Terkel's increasingly tedious interviews tend to do, as one progresses through the book. But a good historian would find a way to condense that material, to extract its most telling points, and to organize and present them in an intriguing and highly thought-provoking manner. This would be true even of the historian whose written work rested heavily upon verbatim quotations from primary sources. You have to make a point. You have to say something provocative if you expect people to get excited about your work.
I do recommend skimming this book, dipping occasionally into its anecdotes and observations. There is much to be learned here. But I don't believe it is going to give many people just what they want for the Depression. Instead, consider reading a novel about the 1930s, or one written in the 1930s; browse old magazines and, particularly, old newspapers, including both the big ones (e.g., the New York Times) and the small, local ones -- if you can find any of the latter that have been preserved in your area.
Gather your own data from these sources and elsewhere, and don't restrict yourself, as much of Terkel's book does, to one city. The 1930s was a world unto itself. This book does not do it justice.
Listening to people's stories .......2004-10-31
Studs Terkel discovered the great value of talking and listening to people, having them tell him their stories. In this way he developed a technique for gathering together a tremendously rich picture of life in the Depression. And these accounts generally have an authenticity and power of their own.
This is social history which is highly readable.
Required Reading For The 21st Century Depression.......2002-12-19
This book is a compilation of oral recountings of the Great Depression of the 20th Century, taken by Studs Terkel. The book can be regarded as an excellent primary source of information from a historical point of view. These are anecdotes from people ranging from sharecroppers on up to highly placed executives, politicians, and professionals. Terkel leaves no stone unturned, as these stories (grouped by occupation and social stratum) show how the Depression affected people in all walks of life in the United States.
No secondary source is going to prove as truthful as the stories themselves. No high-flying armchair analysis by a detached political commentator, PhD or windbag is going to give you the true flavor of what our country went through after October, 1929.
We are in the midst of an economic downturn that has 800,000 American citizens without unemployment insurance, a looming health crisis among unemployed members of the middle class, and a war on the horizon. If you want to be prepared and to understand the ramifications of this situation, I urge you to not only read this book cover to cover, but also to go out and find people who lived through this time and listen to their stories. Go to your grandparents, parents, elderly relatives, the old guy on the porch across the street, the local senior centers. Ask them to talk.
Understanding history helps us understand the future.
Studs Terkel's book is a recounting of the past, but is also a story of our coming future.
Read it!
Book Description
Do events of the 1930s carry a message for the 1990s? Lessons from the Great Depression provides an integrated view of the depression, covering the experience in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. It describes the causes of the depression, why it was so widespread and prolonged, and what brought about eventual recovery.
Peter Temin also finds parallels in recent history, in the relentless deflationary course followed by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board and the British government in the early 1980s, and in the dogged adherence by the Reagan administration to policies generated by a discredited economic theory - supply-side economics.
Peter Temin is Professor of Economics at MIT.
Customer Reviews:
A Compelling Study of the Great Depression: The Gold Standard is Largely to Blame.......2007-07-12
Peter Temin rigorously explains the economics of the Great Depression and the lessons to be learned from the economics of the Great Depression. He explains convincingly that the gold standard was mainly to blame for the Great Depression. It was a Federal Reserve contraction of the money supply that began a recession, and then it was the gold standard that turned it into a catastrophic depression. To be specific, the gold standard imposed a severe tightening of the gold standard, and stubborn efforts by political leaders in several countries to maintain the gold standard strangled the economy further. In America, it was the Republican Party that had long supported the gold standard. It was reestablished when Calvin Coolidge was president.
The countries that left the gold standard quickly, such as Great Britain, recovered the soonest from the Great Depression.
The book praises FDR for abondoning the gold standard. Note that this is an economic history and not a political or social history. This book is for economists or general readers with a strong interest in the period. The analysis fits nicely with monetary economics but used standard equations relating to Keynesian economics.
Peter Temin established himself as one of the greatest economists of the Great Depression. That was his speciality.
Also consider "Essays on the Great Depression" by Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and America's top economist.
Taking the long view.......2001-06-02
Temin's account of the Great Depression differs in almost every from the standard texts. Austrian business cycles, monetary tightness etc. are all passed over as the author goes for the big picture....the long view of political history in Europe.
The Great Depression was the direct result, he says, of the breakdown of peace in the first decade of the twentieth century. The international spirit of co-operation that had existed throughout most of the second half of the 19th century evaporated with the European struggles for empire. So when crisis loomed in the late 1920s all the lifeboats were full of holes. Franco-German rivallry, the demise of the British Empire and isolationism in the United States all produced paralysis when leadership was needed most.
When leadership finally did arrive, it came in the form of social democracy and labour market rigidities which put a floor under the markets but extended the depression in ways not dissimilar to Japan in the 1990s.
If you like your economics filled with Keynes and history this is for you. If Friedman or Schumpeter is more to your taste, then this is worth reading just to see what the other side thinks.
Great stuff.
Book Description
“Admirers of FDR credit his New Deal with restoring the American economy after the disastrous contraction of 1929—33. Truth to tell–as Powell demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt–the New Deal hampered recovery from the contraction, prolonged and added to unemployment, and set the stage for ever more intrusive and costly government. Powell’s analysis is thoroughly documented, relying on an impressive variety of popular and academic literature both contemporary and historical.”
–
Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, Hoover Institution
“There is a critical and often forgotten difference between disaster and tragedy. Disasters happen to us all, no matter what we do. Tragedies are brought upon ourselves by hubris. The Depression of the 1930s would have been a brief disaster if it hadn’t been for the national tragedy of the New Deal. Jim Powell has proven this.”
–
P.J. O’Rourke, author of Parliament of Whores and Eat the Rich
“The material laid out in this book desperately needs to be available to a much wider audience than the ranks of professional economists and economic historians, if policy confusion similar to the New Deal is to be avoided in the future.”
–
James M. Buchanan, Nobel Laureate, George Mason University
“I found Jim Powell’s book fascinating. I think he has written an important story, one that definitely needs telling.”
–
Thomas Fleming, author of The New Dealers’ War
“Jim Powell is one tough-minded historian, willing to let the chips fall where they may. That’s a rare quality these days, hence more valuable than ever. He lets the history do the talking.”
–David Landes, Professor of History Emeritus, Harvard University
“Jim Powell draws together voluminous economic research on the effects of all of Roosevelt’s major policies. Along the way, Powell gives fascinating thumbnail sketches of the major players. The result is a devastating indictment, compellingly told. Those who think that government intervention helped get the U.S. economy out of the depression should read this book.”
–
David R. Henderson, editor of The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics and author of The Joy of Freedom
The Great Depression and the New Deal. For generations, the collective American consciousness has believed that the former ruined the country and the latter saved it. Endless praise has been heaped upon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for masterfully reining in the Depression’s destructive effects and propping up the
country on his New Deal platform. In fact, FDR has achieved mythical status in American history and is considered to be, along with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents of all time. But would the Great Depression have been so catastrophic had the New Deal never been implemented?
In
FDR’s Folly, historian Jim Powell argues that it was in fact the New Deal itself, with its shortsighted programs, that deepened the Great Depression, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly. You’ll discover in alarming detail how FDR’s federal programs hurt America more than helped it, with effects we still feel today, including:
• How Social Security actually increased unemployment
• How higher taxes undermined good businesses
• How new labor laws threw people out of work
• And much more
This groundbreaking book pulls back the shroud of awe and the cloak of time enveloping FDR to prove convincingly how flawed his economic policies actually were, despite his good intentions and the astounding intellect of his circle of advisers. In today’s turbulent domestic and global environment, eerily similar to that of the 1930s, it’s more important than ever before to uncover and understand the truth of our history, lest we be doomed to repeat it.
Customer Reviews:
An unique read.......2007-07-08
This is a good book for everyone. It gives a perspective that you don't see often in history books about President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since FDR was a great president, it's easy to write a pro-FDR history book but this book points out the flaws in FDR's policies and how the New Deal did not actually end the Great Depression. Personally, I am a fan of FDR and his policies but he was not perfect, nor were all his programs perfect. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in reading more about FDR and getting many different perspectives.
Excellent research tool .......2007-06-09
I have researched many sources to learn and document the real facts of FDR's influence on the Great Depression's recovery. This book is the best source yet. It discloses and explains FDR's socialist policies that delayed the recovery and that gave socialism it's stronghold in the USA. Great source to use to discuss with those that think FDR is a saint and who are class warfare believers.
One of the Worst We've Ever Had.......2007-06-09
It is a common trait of human nature to judge people and events within the limited historical scope of their own lifetimes. We tend to think of things in absolutes (e.g. - "It's never been this bad" or "he's the worst president ever,") because we have no historical context in which to properly judge the actual significance of a person or an event that we personally experience. As a result, we tend to take on faith the judgment of "experts" about those people and events that lie outside of our own personal experience. Unless we actually take the time and effort to investigate an historical person or event for ourselves, we will always tend to agree with the "general consensus."
Jim Powell's "FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression" is one of those historical sources that will change your opinion from that of the "general consensus" that FDR is one of the top five American presidents to something appropriately lower. In this rigorously cited work, Powell presents evidence that FDR's New Deal, far from helping the country recover from the Great Depression, actually extended and exacerbated it.
Powell begins by introducing the FDR's main actors who collectively constructed the New Deal. Almost to a man, they were ambitious, arrogant Ivy Leaguers who thought they knew better how to control an economy than the millions of citizens who daily executed informed economic choices in a free market. As Powell explains, "some New Dealers were outright socialists" who rejected free market economics. Indeed, Chamber of Commerce president, Henry Harriman, typified this attitude when he declared that "laissez-faire must be replaced by a philosophy of planned national economy." Powell also relates how "many people in FDR's administration especially admired Italian fascism."
Powell then addresses several aspects of the New Deal with chapter titles that are questions such as "Why Did FDR Seize Everybody's Gold?," "Why Did the New Dealers Destroy All That Food When People Were Hungry?" and "How Did New Deal Labor Laws Throw People Out of Work?" Then, with sound economic analysis, backed by facts and citations, Powell meticulously describes how New Deal policies made things worse instead of better.
New Deal policies consisted of higher taxes, minimum wages, price controls, production limits and myriad other things that were exactly the wrong things to do to bring about economic recovery. Many of these policies were so-called "experiments," but as Powell writes, "Such policies were `experiments' only to the degree that New Dealers were ignorant about what had been tried and failed before." New Deal policies also assaulted individual liberty and economic freedom. Indeed, in April of 1934, Jacob Maged "was jailed for three months and fined for charging 35 cents to press a suit, rather than the 40 cents mandated by the NRA dry cleaning code." Powell summarizes, "Wherever there is dictatorial power over an economy, wherever economic liberty is denied, people are sure to be suffering agonies of the damned. New Dealers assumed that individual rights, private property, and economic liberty were obstacles to recovery, but they are essential."
Particularly disturbing during this time was FDR's encroachment on constitutional freedoms. Many today accuse George W. Bush of being a dictator, but Bush can't hold a candle to the imperial presidency of FDR. As Powell explains, "...FDR was impatient with American democracy, and he issued an extraordinary number of executive orders - 3728 altogether - which is more than all the executive orders issued by his successors Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton combined." Many of these had the power of law behind them, effectively circumventing the legislature. FDR's assault on constitutional liberty was so severe, that in a November 1941 "Fortune" magazine poll "93 percent of employers said they expected their property rights to be undermined and also anticipated the possibility of a dictatorship."
Powell's book conclusively proves that the New Deal was an economic and civil rights disaster whose effects are still being felt today. FDR and his administration, arrogant in their ignorance, committed the cardinal sin of thinking they knew better than all those who had gone before. The sheer destructiveness of FDR's assault on freedom and his economic incompetence disqualifies him from the top five of "general consensus" and rightly places him near the bottom of American presidents.
Sets the Record Straight.......2007-02-16
What ended the Great Depression was not the New Deal, but instead World War II. However, both liberals and neoconservatives alike have taken as gospel the idea that massive governmental intervention are good for the economy.
As Jim Powell in FDR's Folly makes clear, the New Deal was an unmitigated disaster in its own right. The agricultural policy was a total bust. The unprecedented tax rates drained investment capital out of the economy. The New Deal programs were basically boondoggles with the much ballyhooed Tennessee Valley Authority being rife with corruption.
Jim Powell's FDR's Folly should be required reading in American classrooms.
Not all revisionism is wrong.........2007-01-11
After reading most of these reviews, I feel hard put to place anything new on this book here. The subject matter is important and seems to be finally getting the attention it needs. FDR's false legacy of caring and supreme competence is finally getting the scrutinty needed to be laid to rest. The Great Depression would have simply been another temporary blip like the other half dozen or so in American history EXCEPT the worshippers of government had gotten the reins of power.
Mr.Powell takes each one of the various programs of FDRs and tears them apart. Copiously footnoted, the details are gathered here and show the failure of the entire government intervention for the period. And as others noted, Mr. Hoover gets laid to waste and deservedly so for his part in the whole mess.
Economists have long had a problem with the FDR savior legend, historians now seem to finally be joining in to give him a long overdue come uppenace. I will have my teaching degree next year and plan on letting my students know the true story of FDR's mismanagement-we'll see how long I'm allowed to teach that however!
Book Description
Few periods in history compare to the Great Depression. Stock market crashes, bread lines, bank runs, and wild currency speculation were worldwide phenomena--all occurring with war looming in the background. This period has provided economists with a marvelous laboratory for studying the links between economic policies and institutions and economic performance. Here, Ben Bernanke has gathered together his essays on why the Great Depression was so devastating.
This broad view shows us that while the Great Depression was an unparalleled disaster, some economies pulled up faster than others, and some made an opportunity out of it. By comparing and contrasting the economic strategies and statistics of the world's nations as they struggled to survive economically, the fundamental lessons of macroeconomics stand out in bold relief against a background of immense human suffering. The essays in this volume present a uniquely coherent view of the economic causes and worldwide propagation of the depression.
Customer Reviews:
Very Simple Steps.......2007-09-06
Anyone can spin a story about anything using the various mumbo-jumbo parts of mainstream economics. Bernanke here has decided to ravage the gold standard. Suffice to say, it is extremely tedious, banal, and antithetical to common sense.
Ludwig Von Mises predicted the Great Depression in 1919.
Here's two easy steps to understand the real cause of the crash.
1. Read Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression
2. Google "Benjamin Strong", the first Federal Reserve chairman who served until his death in 1928. Bernanke does not mention Strong at all. You will find almost all the answers in Strong's tenure. For the severity and length of the recession, please read Jim Powell's "FDR's Folly".
Bernanke and his coauthors follows Friedman but not Smith or Keynes.......2007-08-13
Bernanke is ,unfortunately,ignorant of the preventive medicine approach to Bubbles and Depressions first postulated by Adam Smith in 1776 in the Wealth of Nations and then reapplied by J M Keynes with the additional analytic conclusion emphasizing the importance of clearly differentiating between tolerable security (risk)and uncertainty.
Smith made it straightforward and easy. There are four categories of borrower to whom commercial and Wall Street investment banks can make loans available to-the prodigals,projectors,imprudent risk takers,and the sober people.The task of money and banking policy is to prevent loans from beng made to the prodigals,projectors(Keynes's speculators of chapter 12 of the GT,1936),and imprudent risk takers(dealt with by Keynes in chapter 11 with his lender's risk versus borrower's risk distintion).Economists don't seem to get it.Neither do Fed chairmen.Allow the capital markets to be dominated by leveraged buyouts and hedge fund speculators guarantees that the inevitable bubble will be created.The only question that remains is whether or nor some type of bailout will prevent a panic and crash.This type of money and banking policy allows the problems to be created and then attempts to prevent the problem from mushrooming into a serious recession or depression.
Smith's advise to Bernanke and his coauthors would be to, first, fix the rate of interest permanently a little bit above the prime rate and then maintain it at that level for the long run and ,second,only permit loans to be made to the sober people.Otherwise,periodic financial crises will occur. It's as simple as that.None of the essays deal with the fundamental goal of banking policy-Prevent the problem from arising in the first place.Of course,if you believe in the Efficient Market Hypothesis fairy tale, where all price changes in financial markets are normally distrbuted,as does Bernanke,no problem is supposed to occur.But they do.
Don't Believe the Hype! A commodity standard is the solution, not the problem!.......2007-08-09
The Federal Reserve made the Great Depression almost inevitable when it inflated the money supply. The Fed inflated the money supply before it contracted it. With a true, pure gold standard, this initial inflation never would have been possible. Everything else about the contraction, corrections, tariffs, etc. would have been a moot point, and we wouldn't have had a great depression. Serious recession with some of the other bad decisions, maybe, great depression, nope.
To claim that the gold standard caused the great depression is shady, lawyerly logic indeed--no matter how many reams of mathematical data you distort to fuzzy the matter, it just doesn't jibe.
It all began with rampant inflation (increasing the money supply, ie printing or creating more paper money without a corresponding increase in gold, silver, or real goods and services. As more goods and services aren't created at the same instant new money springs into existence, prices should rise in proportion to the newly created money, but most people don't realize this is what is happening. They mistake the extra money for wealth (additional goods and services, or shifts in demand), and make illusiory assumptions/decisions that are later corrected.) It all began with rampant inflation by the Fed--the primary occurence a gold standard prevents. Period.
Most everything else is just goobley-gook by the rich to keep the poor duped and ignorant, and by corrupt social engineers who fancy themselves do-gooders. There are problems with gold standards, especially when some countries have honest gold standards, others countries don't, and their currencies and goods are exchanged freely, BUT these are far outweighed by the problems and wealth redistribution to the rich created by fiat money systems. Period.
It serves the ultra-wealthy, and proponents of big government and socialism and collectivism, to dupe people about currency reform. Saying the gold standard caused the great depression is like saying raw vegetables cause heart attacks, or breathing clean mountain air causes lung cancer. To claim that the very thing which would have prevented a great depression is the cause is extremely audacious, and supremely sinister, but hardly surprising.
When you are on a gold standard, and you inflate the money supply (ie, create more dollars out of thin air, or simply print more), of course there is a run on gold. This is what the gold standard is supposed to do! The gold standard will prevent governments from printing additional money, by calling their bluff (ie, making them honor their commitment to exchange each dollar for a fixed weight (not monetary value, but weight) of gold). If the government keeps printing, people keep redeeming money, they run out of gold, and the scam is up. In an honest gold standard, this isn't attempted, people know the gold is there, and they simply use the money for its intended purpose--to store value and trade.
When money isn't tied to gold or a commodity, the government prints more, spends it, and each citizen holding money is taxed because their money is reduced in value so that the new money has value. No tax collectors are needed, but this is a bad way to tax because altering the money supply distorts the price signal that is the backbone of the marketplace. The crafty can speculate against these distortians, picking the pockets of honest working class people who, without realizing it, are paying a hidden currency tax.
If banks hadn't commited fraud by circulating money not backed by assets, they wouldn't have failed. The massive banking collapse was fraud being realized, and the accounts being cleared. It sucks that so many middle class people took it on the chin, but the lesson is that we need honest banking in which more money cannot be created out of thin air, and contracts are honored, and liabilities on the ledger cannot be magically converted to assets, and pyramided ad fraudem. One more time: If the Fed hadn't inflated the money suppy, there wouldn't have been a depression. If there had been a pure gold standard, the Fed wouldn't have been able to balloon the money supply. Period. To simply begin halfway into the story by starting with the contraction is unfathomably dishonest.
Countries can get screwed just like people in this system, especially those countries with honest money who can't print it out of thin air like non-gold-standard countries. If they aren't aware how much new money is printed, their imports/exports can suffer, and they end up conducting transactions for depreciating paper currency that ultimately screws them by declining in value faster than they realized, fall prey to gold speculation or price instability, etc. But placing primary blame on the gold standard is absurd. Its like saying the guy that left his house unlocked is guilty of felony robbery when all his possessions are stolen. The thief is the problem, not the gullible or un-streetsmart homeowner -- though he should certainly be wiser and limit his interactions with criminals (fiaters). The corrupt money was the problem, not the honest money. THe fiat system of currency printing was the problem, not the gold standard.
"Undercapitalized". What a cozy euphamism. You mean a bank that fraudulently pryamided assets, misrepresenting time deposits as demand deposits?
In an honest gold standard, a disastrous contraction of the money supply is not a worry, as it is never inflated disastrously, so a house of cards is never created in the first place.
Roosevelt saved the banking industry. What a hero! In English, he perpetuated the fraud, and shifted the cost for all the banks' fraudulent contracts it couldn't honor immediately, but should have been forced to long term, to the people. Then he allowed the fraud to continue. Robin Hood in reverse. What a role model!
All the rest is expected. After the correction, inflation was much more modest, meaning intervention in the marketplace via distorted price signals was much more modest, meaning citizens not machinated by corrupt currency did what they will usually do--busted butt and created prosperity.
Many rigorous economic studies churn numbers, and then try to assign causes or meanings to those numbers, without truly assessing/considering what the numbers mean in terms of actual human behaviour, especially in terms of fundamental causalities that lead to the data. This is one of Rothbard's main problems with conventional economics.
Read Rothbard's book for a real explanation of the Great Depression much more elegant and less scathing than mine. As long as propaganda like this masquerades as truth, the common man's freedom and standard of living will continue to decline.
At least he start out right.......2006-04-24
Overall Bernanke does a good job at looking at different theories, but his theories on the dangers of deflation have been refuted by many authors. It is too bad that this theory clouds his vision, or else his treatment of the depression would have a lot more authority.
For the economist, I would highly recommend "America's Great Depression" by Murray N. Rothbard. He is by far the most thorough in his treatment of the period, delivering the most compete and well founded theory for the cause of the Great Depression, too bad Bernanke hasn't read it.
Rigorous and Authoritative. The Best Book on Great Depression Economics.......2006-03-23
Bernanke rigorously explains the economics of the Great Depression - the holy grail of economics. For a long time there were different theories as to what caused the Depression, but recent rigorous economic studies, especially from an international perspective, have provided massive data explaining what happened.
The Federal Reserve caused the recession when it constricted the money supply again and again, in part due to the constrictive gold standard. The gold standard caused a run on the gold supply, followed by further Fed tightening of the money supply to defend the currency, leading to widespread bank panics, which constricted the money supply further due to the sharp drop in bank loans and the loss of consumer confidence in the financial services industry, which was hardly regulated.
Bernanke first shows that the countries that abandoned the gold standard the soonest, such as Britain, were the ones that recovered the quickest. The countries that clung to the gold standard the longest, such as France, were the ones that suffered the longest. The countries that were not on the gold standard - perhaps using the silver standard - avoided the Great Depression!
The economic crisis was made worse by the massive banking collapse. Thousands of undercapitalized banks went insolvent, and thousands of people lost their savings. Bank panics swept across the country. Other banks refused to make new loans for fear of loan default. The banking crisis resulted in a further contraction of the money supply. The banking industry completely collapsed at the end of Hoover's presidency.
Sticky wages also contributed to the depression, although not as much as Keynesians think, according to Bernanke. Hoover and FDR may have made this worse by trying to maintain and increase the spending power of workers, although the counter argument is that this increased worker spending power increased spending and demand. The book examines many other factors too numerous to list in this review. This is the best book on the economics of the Great Depression.
Once taking office in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt quickly removed America from the disastrous gold standard and saved the collapsed banking industry. Recovery followed. According to Bernanke, industrial output in America grew 5% per quarter from 1933-37. Per quarter. Real wages grew substantially. Productivity grew substantially. Unemployment dropped.
Bernanke says that Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal era of 1933-37 achieved strong economic growth by several different measurements. FDR reversed the contraction in 1933, so technically the depression ended in 1933. GDP grew over 50% in four years. This period of high growth was interrupted by a severe recession in 1937-38, which was followed by more high growth. According to Bernanke, "Quarterly growth rates for manufacturing employment, hours, and input in 1938-40 were 1.8, 2.8, and 4.9 percent, respectively."
I used a pencil to highlight the conclusions in this book. A massive amount of rigorous economic data is included, so only an economist will understand everything, but anyone can understand the conclusions. Bernanke inserts summary sentences so anyone can understand the conclusions. Highest recommendation.
Customer Reviews:
The Madness of Crowds.......2007-09-20
This book is one of the best I have read on the Bull Market. He takes Galbraith as his foil and expresses his profound discontent with Galbraith's unilinear formulation of govt. inactivity and outright stupidity. As Sobel argues, the The Great Bull Market was a product of a particular world view that grew up in the easy-money days of the 1920s. Parts of this world view were:
1) A notion that everyone should and could get rich
2) that hard work and risk as a pre-requisite for gaining wealth was a thing of the past -- indeed, inside the large brokerages it was loudly spoken that such older ethos' were not part of modern Wall Street.
3) supplanting risk and hard work was an ethos of power elites that scrathed each other's back. And that was assumed to be part of the normal healthy business processes.
4) There was a general overall lack of attention to detail and people working through the risks of financial euphoria.
In addition, unlike Galbraith, Sobel says that the powers that be actually made good choices, that the falls were really not as bad as they were made to look at the time.
It is a well written and cogent analysis of this exciting time.
Into the heads of the manic crowd.......2002-10-12
While many stock market books have lots to say about parallels in financial history, this one is very different. The Great Bull Market is not really about the stock market at all. It's about the factors that led to the market mania of the late 1920s. Changes in social patterns, dramatic changes in the economy and living standards and a liberalisation of financial laws all led to the belief that life had really changed for everyone for the better.
Of course, there are wider things to consider than the rather simplistic and sometimes left-wing views put forward here. Even so, The Great Bull Market does take you away from the now perfunctory trawl through margin statistics and takes you into the heads of those who were actually parting with cash. For that it's a great read.
A ride on the wild bull.......2000-07-25
The market could only go up. Margin requirements were minimal. Investment in equities, seemingly ANY equities was a risk-less, rock solid path to fortune. Why buy one of the new electronic phonographs, or a refrigerator, on "time" (credit) when for the same amount of money, one could buy equities on margin, gain immense leverage, and be "guaranteed" to make the money back many times over, and be able to buy many more luxuries.
According to Mr. Sobel, this was, in a nutshell, the mentality of the average investor. Investment houses and financial institutions fueled the fire by making margin cheap and easy. Ultimately, stock prices were held up by nothing. Tremors of instability began to ripple through the market as the impending crash approached, often dismissed as buying opportunities. Ultimately, reality set in, and the unthinkable happened.
Are things different today? Yes and No. More safeguards would seem to be in place, however valuations of today make those of the 20's look miniscule. While a direct comparison is difficult to make between the period covered in the book, and the market of 2000, there are lessons to be learned. "The Great Bull Market" provides a fascinating account of the crash and the events that led up to it. A must read for anyone feeling a little jittery about the climate on Wall Street today!
Book Description
Between 1929 and 1941, the Communist Party organized and led a radical, militantly antiracist movement in Alabama—the center of Party activity in the Depression South. Hammer and Hoe documents the efforts of the Alabama Communist Party and its allies to secure racial, economic, and political reforms. Sensitive to the complexities of gender, race, culture and class without compromising the political narrative, Robin Kelley illustrates one of the most unique and least understood radical movements in American history.
The Alabama Communist Party was built from scratch by working people who had no Euro-American radical political tradition. It was composed largely of poor blacks, most of whom were semiliterate and devoutly religious, but it also attracted a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, iconoclastic youth, and renegade liberals. Kelley shows that the cultural identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the development of the Party. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals.
In the South race pervaded virtually every aspect of Communist activity. And because the Party's call for voting rights, racial equality, equal wages for women, and land for landless farmers represented a fundamental challenge to the society and economy of the South, it is not surprising that Party organizers faced a constant wave of violence.
Kelley's analysis ranges broadly, examining such topics as the Party's challenge to black middle-class leadership; the social, ideological, and cultural roots of black working-class radicalism; Communist efforts to build alliances with Southern liberals; and the emergence of a left-wing, interracial youth movement. He closes with a discussion of the Alabama Communist Party's demise and its legacy for future civil rights activism.
Customer Reviews:
The Grand Old Party.......2005-08-06
This is a first-rate history of the Communist Party and its fellow-travelers in Alabama during the depression. It describes the Party during the "third period" and the popular front era. While it does not discuss the ulterior motives of the Party in any great detail it does help to establish the positive role of the Commuunists in the prehistory of the civil rights movement. It also gives glimpses of the life in the Party in Alabama including Communist songs sung to the tune of spirituals and African-American Young Pioneers. The attempt by radicals in the 1930's to change this country for the better has not found its rightful place in popular or high school history. This book helps to remedy that omission.
A powerful venture in American history.......2000-12-17
Kelley has produced a powerful and startling history of the deep south in the 1930s. He tackles a difficult subject both historically and ideologically (the relationship between poor black sharecroppers and the American Communist party). His tireless efforts at writing this book shine out of the pages unquestionably as does his deep, thoughtful intelligence. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in subversive U.S. history or just in a good read.
Excellent. HIghly Infoormative and Insightfuul........1999-02-15
This book is great, it undermines the conventional treatments of afro-american history and although it is focused in the south it takes a genuine look at the struggle to free the shackles from Afro-americans and lift the blanket of opressions.
Books:
- This Terrible War: The Civil War and its Aftermath
- Thomas ap Catesby Jones: Commodore of Manifest Destiny (Library of Naval Biography Series)
- Too Far From Home: A Story of Life and Death in Space
- Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs: Official Companion Book to the Exhibition sponsored by National Geographic
- Walk a Mile in My Shoes: A Book About Biological Parents for Foster Parents and Social Workers
- Washington's Crossing (Pivotal Moments in American History)
- Wave-Swept Shore: The Rigors of Life on a Rocky Coast
- What Clients Love: A Field Guide to Growing Your Business
- Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?: Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change
- Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (Glass Mountain Pamphlets)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- History: Fiction or Science
- Historical Dictionary of the Civil War
- Beyond Globalization: Shaping a Sustainable Global Economy
- Advances in Behavioral Finance
- Ethical Theory and Business, Seventh Edition
- Death in the Garden
- Create High Impact Business Reports
- Nuevos Rumbos en la Teoría de la Organización
- Consumer Economics Issues in America, 9e
- Das Tagebuch Der Bridget Jones
Depression
| 20th Century
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War
Suite Francaise
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
The Echo Maker: A Novel
