Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I'll confess to not being a fan of big government so I was prepared to be receptive to a harsh assessment of the New Deal. However, I was not prepared for the scathing indictment armed with facts, logic, primary source quotes and data that constitute this powerful book.
The book is hard to put down even as you recoil in horror at the lunatic economic policies of the era and the blatant turn to fascism. If you tried to design a program to extend the Great Depression indefinitely, you could have done little better than FDR did. The economic incompetence and unintended consequences which are detailed in all their frightening glory is mind boggling, but it is only part of the story.
The book also demonstrates the endemic political patronage and vote buying that resulted from the concentration of money and power in the hands of the federal government. State and local politicians who supported Roosevelt were rewarded with a cascade of federal dollars, those who opposed him were frozen out and inevitably lost subsequent elections.
Citizens who opposed FDR were set upon by the IRS or the NRA. The use of government power to persecute and intimidate dissension is chilling. There are several quotes or diary entries from even Roosevelt's supporters and cabinet members that point out both the insanity of the policies and the dangers of FDR's abuse of power.
With our government setting out on what's been called the "New New Deal", this book should be required reading for every citizen so they can understand both the failure of the New Deal as an economic cure and the abuse of power and vote buying that the huge transfer of money and independence from the private sector to the public sector caused and will undoubtedly cause again.
PS- As of the writing of this review, it appears you either love this book or you hate it as there are only 5 star reviews and 1 star reviews. However, if you read the reviews, you'll notice that those who have given it 5 star reviews have clearly read the book as they either quote from it or recount specific stories or facts mentioned in the book. On the other hand (again, as of this writing) the 1 star reviews don't mention a single specific point in the book and attempt to refute it. It seems pretty clear that they haven't actually read the book. If they have read it (which I doubt), they choose to review it with ad-hominem attacks, claims of bias (a historian with a world view??!!...I'm shocked!)and irrelevant rants about Bush etc. Please, do us all a favor.. if you want to attack a book at least read it and make specific logical refutations, don't simply pile on trite cliches and emotional appeals that have nothing to do with the author's scholarship.
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