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Summary
Summary
This essential guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal provides a wealth of information, analysis, biographical profiles, primary documents and current resources that will help students to understand this pivotal era in American history. The author, an expert on this age of U.S. history and politics, brings to life the traumatic period that began in 1929 and ended only with America's entrance into World War II in 1941. He carefully explains the causes of the Depression, the actions taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt to lift America out of its economic morass, and the economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of the age.
Following a chronology of events, a narrative overview examines the events of the Great Depression and the New Deal. Other topical essays address the causes and cure of the Depression, America's struggle against the Depression, the effect of the Depression on American politics, changes in society and culture during the Depression decade, and an evaluation of the New Deal from a contemporary perspective. Twenty-seven biographical profiles of key figures of the era, the text of ten important primary documents, a glossary of frequently cited terms, and an annotated bibliography of print and nonprint materials for student use complete the work. This work is an essential source for the most current thinking and resources on the Great Depression and the New Deal.
Author Notes
ROBERT F. HIMMELBERG is Professor of History at Fordham University. He served as Dean of Fordham's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 1993 to 2000. He is the author of Historians and Race: Autobiography and the Writing of History (1996), Business and Government in America Since 1870 (1994), The Origins of the National Recovery Administration: Business, Government, and the Trade Association Issue, 1921-1933 (1976, rev. ed. 1993), coauthor of Herbert Hoover and the Crisis of American Capitalism (1974), and editor of The Great Depression and American Capitalism (1968). A specialist in the economic and political history of the Great Depression and the New Deal, he has written numerous papers on the subject.
Reviews (1)
Choice Review
Himmelberg (Fordham Univ.) combines a short narrative account of the Great Depression and New Deal with a highly selective chronology of events, short biographies of important figures from the era, period photographs, and excerpts from ten primary sources. For readers with little knowledge of the period, the chronology and narrative account might prove useful as a starting point, but the narrative is deficient in a number of respects. In particular, it fails to take account of the emerging consensus among economic historians about the causes of the Great Depression, largely neglects recent work on the political economy of the New Deal, and says little or nothing about the causes and consequences of the growth of federal expenditures during the 1930s. The biographies are perfunctory and would seem to offer little insight into the events of the period. The primary documents are of greater interest, and the introduction to each provides useful context. Overall, this book tries to do too much in too little space. There are superior sources widely available for each topic that it covers, but for libraries with limited collections this work might serve as a useful one-volume resource for general readers and lower-division students. J. L. Rosenbloom University of Kansas
Table of Contents
| Copyright Acknowledgments | p. v |
| Advisory Board | p. vi |
| Series Foreword | p. ix |
| Preface | p. xiii |
| Preface | p. xv |
| Chronology of Events | p. xvii |
| 1 The Great Depression and the New Deal: an Overview | p. 3 |
| 2 A Decade of Depression, 1929-1941: Theories of Cause and Cure | p. 21 |
| 3 America's Struggle Against the Depression, 1929-1940: from Hoover to Roosevelt and the New Deal | p. 33 |
| 4 The Great Depression and American Politics | p. 55 |
| 5 Society and Culture in the Depression Decade | p. 69 |
| 6 The New Deal: an Evaluation | p. 77 |
| Note | p. 80 |
| Note | p. 115 |
| Glossary of Selected Terms | p. 155 |
| Annotated Bibliography | p. 161 |
| Index | p. 179 |
| About the Author | p. 185 |
