New Deals
Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920–1935

This book, an economic history of the interwar era, is the first major reinterpretation of the New Deal in thirty years.

Colin Gordon (Author)

9780521451222, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 August 1994

344 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.68 kg

"This is an impressive book. The argument throughout is presented in a cognent, lucid style. The research in new or seldom-used sources and the command of a wide range of business histories is exceptional. The analysis is always provocative....Gordon demands the serious attention of any scholar interested in the New Deal and the history of the 20th century's political economy." David E. Hamilton, Labour/Le Travail

This book is the first major reinterpretation of the New Deal in thirty years. Employing archival research and insights from history, political sociology, and economics, the author reassesses the origins and premises of the industrial, labour, and welfare policies of the 1920s and 1930s. Gordon argues that the labour and welfare law of the latter New Deal - indeed the origins of the modern welfare state - grew from a piecemeal private response to the competitive instability of the 1920s. This study is both an economic history of the interwar era, and an examination of the relationship between political and economic power in the United States.

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations used in text and notes
Introduction
1. Rethinking the New Deal: the logic and limits of the American political economy
2. Competition and collective action: business condition and business strategies, 1920–1932
3. Workers organising capitalists: regulatory unionism in American industry, 1920–1932
4. The limits of associationalism: business organisation and disorganisation, 1920–1932
5. The National Recovery Act: the political economy of business organisation, 1933–1935
6. The Wagner Act: the political economy of labour relations, 1933–1937
7. The Social Security Act: the political economy of welfare capitalism, 1920–1935
8. New Deal, old deck: business, labour, and politics after 1935
Notes
Bibliographical essay
Manuscript collections.

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