Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 276-280 of 310
 Superficial August 26, 2008
Thomas Kwiatkowski (Elkhorn, WI USA)
101 out of 167 found this review helpful
This is a rambling critique of Roosevelt's response to the Great Depression that seems to have a theme and coherence apparent only to the author. Seldom have a I felt that I wasted my time reading a book, but this is one of those rare occasions... and I say that as a conservative who believes that FDR's economic response to the Depression is not only overrated, but in many respects has been detrimental to the country. Shlaes, however, simply does not make a persausive case. Her research is thin, perhaps non-existent. She spends little time explaining substantive responses to the Depression, but went on for pages about Andrew Mellon's art collection and his donation of it to the nation. While I do not mean to denigrate Mellon's donation of the art and the National Gallery that houses it, Shlaes' swooning over this act within the context of the Depression brings to mind Marie Antoinette's legendary response to the severe shortage of bread among starving Parisians with her comment "have they no cake, let them eat cake!" It perpetuates the worst stereotype of Republicans. I expected more from a former member of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board. For a well-articulated and supported critique of the New Deal, your time is better spent reading Jim Powell's "FDR's Folly."
Terribly Disappointing September 10, 2007
Fred L. (Jupiter, Florida)
82 out of 150 found this review helpful
Having heard Ms. Shlaes on television several times, I expected an interesting read. Regrettably, the book proved to be unreadable, and became a donation to the public library after several aborted attempts to deal with it.
There are two principal problems. First, probably hundreds of names are thrown at the reader, but not a single individual is properly developed. It is frustrating to read about possible players in the drama without (a) knowing whether they will play a major role or not be seen again in the next 400 pages; or (b) being given a mini-biography or at least an understanding of the skills, mindset and baggage being brought to the party by said individual. The only "character development" provided is done in the context of contrasts between individuals, a confusing technique with a flimsy and changing frame of reference.
Secondly, the author's observations and conclusions .... the main points that she wishes to make .... are not clearly articulated, never plainly stated. They are presumably implied by the highly detailed text, but this reader found it impossible to draw insights from disconnected and often technical treatments of disparate subjects.
In short, the book is a scattershot collection of interesting factoids, which is totally lacking in organization.
Just a bad book January 19, 2009
Douglas Elliott (Houston, TX)
49 out of 92 found this review helpful
I read this book about one quarter of the way through before I realized it is just a bad book. It is full of non-sequiturs and meaningless information. For instance, the author notes that Felix Frankfurter and Calvin Coolidge disagreed about economics although they were both from Massachusetts!!! Also the author notes that Felix Frankfurter admired Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, whose father was buried in the same cemetery as Amy Lowell!!! There is an idea here, which is why I got the book, but what the hell? The writing is like a high school term paper, just filling space with random facts.
Skewed Corporate Propaganda November 16, 2008
Chad W. Boyer (San Diego, CA)
61 out of 129 found this review helpful
As a Great Depression buff (an avidity brought about by our current economic troubles) I wish-listed this book a year ago. Finally, I decided I had waited long enough and bought it, eagerly awaiting its arrival. The day it came, I jumped into it, laying aside a weekend to read it. By 10 am Saturday, I was concerned. The book seemed to tendentiously side with the Bankers and Industrialists while naysaying everything FDR's New Deal had seemed to be. Schlaes cast New Deal imagery as nothing more than Leftist hagiography and the FDR administration as riddled by communists, fascists and Nazis (and how such a rogues gallery of conflicting ideologies could have operated in a single White House I have not the foggiest). Suffice it to say that by lunchtime, I could take not another page and instead of reading the book, googled Amity Schlaes.
I think now she is the reincarnation of Ayn Rand. Now, for those who hold to Rand's theory of Objectivism, you'll love it (Rand of course was an ardent Nazi), but those who hove closer to Objective Reality and the facts and getting beyond Corporate propaganda are going to be SORELY disappointed. This book is nothing more than revisionism and a repackaging of the Corporate criticisms espoused at the time by the DuPonts and others who hated the fact the Average American was set to get a New Deal. Schlaes consistently cites the DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE as a thermometer of the economy when any seriously economic-minded person knows THE STOCK MARKET IS NOT THE ECONOMY. Lately, in fact, the Stock Market has tended to be the anti-economy, functioning to damage and perhaps ultimately obliterate the real economy as anti-matter does to matter. Using bogus, cherry picked stats, Schlaes weaves the typical, alternate reality of the corporatists and right wing and for those of us in the 'reality-based community' it is a tome of odious timbre. I will be looking for a more accurate and centrist discussion of the Great Depression's fall out and would appreciate any who can point me in that direction.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics April 25, 2009
Anne e Nonomous (Boston, MA United States)
20 out of 47 found this review helpful
This book buttresses an ideological viewpoint with false data. The unemployment numbers from the 1930's are wrong. But I guess some folks would rather lie than to admit that the New Deal actually helped. Here's the correct data on unemployment:
http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/very-short-reading-list-unemployment-in-the-1930s/
Read it and judge for yourself.
Showing reviews 276-280 of 310
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