Whether it was the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the relief programs, the Wagner Act, court packing, the recession of 1937-38, the 1936 election, or Roosevelt?s anti-trust attack on business, she explains what happened and/or why things did not work out as the president had expected.
Shlaes is particularly ?microscopic? when it comes to examining the New Deal. Of course, since this was the period of the Depression, the statistics typically showed that the American economy was not doing well nor recovering very quickly. Each chapter of fifteen chapters begins with a specific date and an indication of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the unemployment rate, or other indexes showing how the economy was doing. The study begins in January 1927 and ends in January 1940. Shlaes goes into much detail on the programs that Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover supported during their presidencies. Through these specific individuals and a few others, Shlaes examines the American economy, the Hoover presidency, and the Rooseveltian New Deal. There are others, however, whom Shlaes also examines very closely ? individuals such as Andrew Mellon, Herbert Hoover, Wendell Wilkie, Father Divine, and Samuel Insull. For whatever reason they had, the visit to Russia and actually talking to Joseph Stalin would have a definite impact on them. These individuals included people like Stuart Chase, Rexford Tugwell, John Brophy, Paul Douglas, and Roger Baldwin. All of them went to the Soviet Union on ?The Junket? and all were associated with liberal causes and ideas. Shlaes begins by identifying a group of individuals that are followed throughout the study.
Or, at least that is what the reader is led to believe about the identity of ?the forgotten man.? And, she does this by her so-called approach of looking at ?the forgotten man.? Who was this forgotten man? He or she is the one who paid the bills for the New Deal programs, who was out of work throughout the economic catastrophe, and who put faith in what those in power said.
She offers her own views on what caused this economic crisis, how badly it was handled by those in government, and why the economic downturn lasted so long. The author has written a rather lengthy account of what she believes the Great Depression was all about. Namorato, Department of History, University of Mississippi.Īmity Shlaes? The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression is, in many respects, a unique book. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression Author(s):Īmity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.
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