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The latest volume of the Oxford History of the United States, an exhaustive survey spanning 16 years of crises, ordeals, fears, and insecurities. Kennedy (History/Stanford Univ.; Over Here: The First World War and American Society, 1980) writes of post-WWI disillusionment, the collapse of farm prices that had been driven higher by the war, and the great movement of rural people to the cities. President Hoover, the laissez-faire whipping boy of the Great Depression, emerges here as a well-intentioned workaholic who tried valiantly with many plans and experiments, despite some faulty philosophy, to bring his country out of the economic free fall that resulted from the effects of the Treaty of Versailles (huge and ruinous war reparations imposed on Germany, record tariffs that severely damaged international trade), a gold standard that restricted the money supply, and an unregulated, speculative stock market that fed on excess credit and caused widespread bank failures and massive unemployment. Kennedy describes the great fear paralyzing the country when FDR came to power. The flood of New Deal legislation attempted to use the government to build social and economic security for its citizens. It didn't end the Depression, but it did create permanent monuments in American life, including Social Security, unemployment insurance, and banking and stock market reforms. Full economic recovery followed the US entrance into WWII, from which a newly prosperous, confident America emerged, despite the loss of more than 400,000 lives. The author does well in selecting salient events and colorful, representative details to illuminate this critical period in the American Century. A major achievement in objective historical writing that should be a legacy to generations of students seeking authoritative reference material on the period. (Kirkus Reviews)
