A Concise History of the New Deal

This book provides a history of the New Deal, exploring the institutional, political, and cultural changes experienced by the United States during the Great Depression.

Jason Scott Smith (Author)

9780521877213, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 May 2014

226 pages, 1 b/w illus. 4 tables
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.44 kg

'Thanks to Jason Scott Smith, twenty-first-century undergraduates now have a highly readable account of the Great Depression and the New Deal. Written in the shadow of our own great recession, Smith's account is notable for its emphasis on New Deal infrastructure spending, a long-ago 'stimulus' that put millions to work, boosted the economy, and permanently transformed the nation.' Nelson Lichtenstein, MacArthur Foundation Chair in History, University of California, Santa Barbara

During the 1930s, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal carried out a program of dramatic reform to counter the unprecedented failures of the market economy exposed by the Great Depression. Contrary to the views of today's conservative critics, this book argues that New Dealers were not 'anticapitalist' in the ways in which they approached the problems confronting society. Rather, they were reformers who were deeply interested in fixing the problems of capitalism, if at times unsure of the best tools to use for the job. In undertaking their reforms, the New Dealers profoundly changed the United States in ways that still resonate today. Lively and engaging, this narrative history focuses on the impact of political and economic change on social and cultural relations.

1. A global depression
2. Saving capitalism, 1933–4
3. The New Deal at high tide, 1934–6
4. Society and culture in the 1930s
5. Opposition and backlash, 1937–9
6. Legacies of the New Deal.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK]