The Forgotten Man
Amity Shlaes
Challenging conventional history, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression that devastated America in the early part of the twentieth century. She shows how both Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt failed to understand the prosperity of the 1920s and heaped massive burdens on the country that more than offset the benefit of New Deal programs. From 1929 to 1940, federal intervention helped to make the Depression great by forgetting the men and women who sought to help themselves.
In this illuminating work of history, Shlaes follows the struggles of those now forgotten people, from a family of butchers in Brooklyn who dealt a stunning blow to the New Deal, to Bill W., who founded Alcoholics Anonymous, and Father Divine, a black cult leader. She takes a fresh look at the great scapegoats of the period, from Andrew Mellon to Sam Insull of Chicago. Finally, she traces the mounting agony of the New Dealers themselves. Authoritative, original, and utterly engrossing, The Forgotten Man reveals how those dark years shaped both current political challenges and the strong national character that helps Americans to confront them.
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About Amity Shlaes
Reviews for The Forgotten Man
The Times
Amity Shlaes not only manages to keep you wide awake, she also sets your blood to boiling. Even if you don't always agree with her conclusions, she defines the debate over what we ought to do and gets you thinking constructively about the problems she identifies
New York Times
Combines the lively narrative style of a first-rate journalist with the careful scholarship of a born historian. But her book is much more than an enjoyable narrative. It is a highly original reinterpretation that turns the received wisdom about the Depression on its head
Sunday Telegraph
Readers have waited eagerly for this book for decades. Amity Shlaes has delivered it
Paul Johnson Amity Shlaes' brilliant and highly readable book surely must be the best analysis of the Great Depression ever
Washington Times
The Forgotten Man is an engaging read and a welcome corrective to the popular view of Roosevelt and his New Deal... illuminating
Financial Times
With cool analysis enlivened by vivid vignettes in a compelling narrative, Amity Shlaes retrieves the epithet stolen and turned on its head by Franklin Roosevelt. The Forgotten Man is an incisive and controversial history of the Great Depression that challenges much of the received wisdom and does it with brio and scholarship. Amity Shlaes takes no prisoners
Harold Evans