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Summary
Summary
Synthesizing new economic research of recent decades, the author offers new insights and some surprising conclusions about the Great Depression.
Author Notes
Gene Smiley is professor of economics at Marquette University.
Reviews (2)
Booklist Review
Smiley, an academic, revisits the Great Depression, the period from 1929 until 1933 that had such a slow recovery that the whole decade of the 1930s is often considered the Depression. Armed with increasingly sophisticated analytical techniques, the author sets out to survey the 1930s so that readers without training in economics have a better understanding of the forces at work during this period. In his view, the Great Depression prompted growing intellectual fascination with socialist economic ideas and precipitated World War II, which in turn led to the spread of communism worldwide. This era gave rise to Keynesian macroeconomics, which explained the Depression and advised how to get out of it and is now mainstream economic analysis. Smiley contends that "in many ways the Great Depression was the defining moment for 20th Century America." --Mary Whaley
Choice Review
The Great Depression was arguably one of the critical economic and political events of the 20th century. However, explaining the causes and significances of this economic collapse to nonspecialists has challenged scholars, as they have often used jargon and complex analysis that befuddled readers. Economist Smiley (Marquette Univ.) has produced a solution in this slim and readable volume. In five concise chapters, Smiley surveys 1920s prosperity, the causes of the Great Depression, and New Deal responses and their consequences in language that should be clear and understandable to students. Drawing on recent scholarship, he argues that the reorientation of global trade after WW I and the infatuation with the gold standard helped to produce the Great Depression. Despite the good intentions of the New Deal, many of its programs suppressed the economy. Smiley also contends that prosperity did not return with WW II; rather, wartime government controls, rationing, and taxes postponed economic recovery until 1946. Sections describing the gold standard, world trade in the 1920s, and the National Recovery Administration are well done. The concluding chapter on the legacy of the Great Depression could provide interesting discussion points for students. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. All general and academic collections. R. M. Hyser James Madison University
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. ix |
| 1 Prosperity Gives Way to the Great Depression | p. 3 |
| Economic growth in the 1920s | |
| Declining industries | |
| Taxes, income distribution, and the stock market boom | |
| Initial stages of the great contraction | |
| The collapsing world economy | |
| Continuing decline, increasing unrest, and the final banking panic | |
| The state of the economy in March 1933 | |
| 2 What Caused the Great Depression? | p. 31 |
| A framework for analysis: markets, prices, and economic contractions | |
| Banks and the Federal Reserve System | |
| The gold standard | |
| Explaining the contraction: World War I dislocations, debts, and reparations | |
| Restoring the gold standard | |
| German hyperinflation | |
| Destabilizing gold flows and the deflationary policies | |
| Why the depression was more severe in the United States | |
| 3 The First New Deal, 1933-1935 | p. 71 |
| Roosevelt and his advisers | |
| Ending the financial crisis | |
| The First Hundred Days | |
| The first Agricultural Adjustment Act | |
| The National Industrial Recovery Act | |
| Slow recovery from 1933 to 1935 | |
| End of the NRA | |
| 4 The Recovery Aborted, 1935-1939 | p. 105 |
| Recovery from 1935 to 1937 | |
| Roosevelt swings to the left | |
| The 1937-1938 depression | |
| Why recovery was so slow | |
| 5 The Legacy of the Great Depression | p. 133 |
| World War II and the rise of Keynesian economics | |
| Monetary policy after the Great Depression | |
| Growth of the federal government and federal fiscalism | |
| Intervention in agriculture | |
| The rise of social welfare programs | |
| International trade and finance | |
| Could it happen again? | |
| A Note on Sources | p. 164 |
| Index | p. 170 |
