Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 21-25 of 310
 The Forgotten Man May 19, 2009
Gene M. Biswell (Sparks, Nv, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
An excellent book of an interesting time, and the whys and hows of of why today is the way it is.
This book is neither fishy or foul June 12, 2009
Efrem Sepulveda (Tempe, AZ)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ms. Shlaes gives us a summary of the Great Depression through a series of events that span from 1927, a few years before the stock market crash launching the Depression, to 1940 with the election of FDR to his third term over Wendell Willkie and the end of that era. The events of this past year with regards to the stimulus and bailout actions of both Presidents Bush and Obama recall a similar era when FDR continued the policies of President Hoover and expanded them greatly for the purpose of getting America back on its feet. Like today, FDR took the advice of John Keynes, among other people, and tried to spend our way out of our difficulties with mixed results; in his time the results were due to the sluggishness brought about by the heavy taxation of business.
The book was well researched, but I found the endnote section to be lacking somewhat; nevertheless it did have a good bibliographic section. There were some errors in the text regarding President Coolidge's visit to Rapid City and date Willkie ran for president. In my opinion, the addition of Father Divine in the history was somewhat puzzling, but I must assume that he was example of how private initiative overcame the difficulties of that era. I give this book a good recommendation.
Thoughtful look at a period of history that everybody should understand June 22, 2009
S. J Mahoney (Washington State)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Forgotten Man does a remarkable job of describing how FDR's policies lengthened the period known as the Great Depression. Following many bad decisions by Hoover, FDR decides to take a very cavalier and seat of his pants approach to the economy, and this experimentation ensured that almost 25 percent of Americans were jobless throughout the 30's. Particularly interesting is the discussion on the gold standard and deflation vs inflation (pros and cons of deflation and inflation, etc). The parallels between this period of history and today are very apparent, and the struggle of socialism vs capitalism rages in TFM as it does today with Obama.
TFM does an excellent job describing the period and letting the reader draw their own conclusions. This should be a must read for anyone that claims to have any sort of opinion on economic policy today.
Excellent evaluation of the period with lessons for today August 20, 2009
Derick L. Driemeyer (St. Louis, Mo.)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A clear concise review of the Depression period with comments on the individuals as well as the events of the time. One can see the beginnings of the pressure for greater government involvement in individuals lives that we are being faced with today
The Great Depression's Forgotten Man September 30, 2009
D. Mataconis (Bristow, Virginia)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The standard, some might say accepted, history of The Great Depression is one that most of us know pretty well. When Wall Street crashed in October 1929, we're told, President Hoover, at that point in office for just over nine months, sat back and did nothing as the economy collapsed around. Wedded as he (supposedly) was to the "old" idea of laissez-faire, Hoover was confident that the market, and the economy, would correct itself. It wasn't until three years later, when Franklin Roosevelt and his wise men arrived on the scene and "saved" the economy while battling reactionary forces in Congress and on the Supreme Court.
As Amity Shlaes demonstrates in her book The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, though, there's a profound difference between the history we were all taught and what actually happened.
Hoover, as Shlaes points out quite clearly, was far from an advocate of free markets and was not at all shy in using the government in an effort to stop the economic decline. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff, after all, was little more than a misguided attempt to protect ailing domestic industries from foreign competition -- what it did in reality was contribute to the overall destruction in world trade that made the Great Depression even worse. Hoover also initiated smaller-scare versions of the programs that FDR would later implement himself, and, most disastrously, he raised taxes in 1932; an act which only served to further dampen whatever growth remained in the economy.
Shlaes spends most of her time, though, focusing on the Roosevelt Administration and the intellectuals that formed the core of the "brain trust" that he brought into office with him when he took office in 1933. Contrary to the established history, she shows us that the New Deal did not "save" the country from the Great Depression and in fact there's abundant evidence that the policies that Roosevelt initiated starting in 1932 and actually worsened the economic conditions and made recovery impossible. It wasn't until the country started gearing up for World War II, for example, that industrial production returned to anything close to the levels it was at before October 1929, and unemployment remained in double digits for the better part of a decade. The only reason, it seems, that Roosevelt was able to hold onto power during those years was because he turned the Federal Budget into a massive series of transfer payments from one class to another -- and, in a democracy, the people receiving the money will always vote to continue receiving it.
The most striking thing about the portrait that Shlaes paints of those years from 1933 through 1940, though, is the picture it paints of Roosevelt himself. He comes across at indecisive, devious, and as someone with no clear understanding of the consequences of what he was doing. Not exactly what we learn in history class, is it folks ?
Shlaes book is a valuable read both as a health revision of the Rooselvelt/Great Depression/New Deal hagiography and as a lesson for us today as we watch yet another President who doesn't seem to have a clear plan navigate the country out of a crisis.
Showing reviews 21-25 of 310
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