American History Too!

On the eighth episode of American History Too! we delve into one of the great crisis moments in American History – the Great Depression.  We’re joined by special guest, Alastair Duthie (@d_alastair), who helps guide us through the historiographical minefield that surrounds Presidents’ Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt in their attempts to bring the American economy and people back from the brink. 

We begin by explaining some of the reasons for the global financial collapse of the 1920s and 1930s.  Malcolm inspires his own great depression as he dips his toe into the cold waters of economic history, Alastair reminds us that the 1920s was not all it has been cracked up to be, and Mark wholeheartedly refuses to ever discuss the t*riff.  Also, it is decided that perhaps the much maligned Herbert Hoover was not the twentieth century’s James Buchanan (more of a Franklin Pierce, perhaps).

The second half of the podcast is devoted to a consideration of Roosevelt’s New Deal and the surrounding historiography – what was the New Deal trying to achieve?  What is its legacy?  And how have the political leanings of historians continued to influence the New Deal debate? 

Finally, after all the doom and gloom of the Great Depression we end the podcast on the more optimistic note of Happy Days Are Here Again.

Thanks again for listening and we will back in two weeks to discuss the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s!

Cheers,

Mark and Malcolm

Reading List

-          Brian E. Birdnow, “Hoover Biographies and Hoover Revisionism”, in Katherine Sibly (ed.), A Companion to Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2014)

-          James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1956)

-          William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1963)

-          Eric Rauchway, ‘New Deal Denialism’, Dissent (Winter, 2010), 66-72

-          Amity Schlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2007)

-          Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Roosevelt, 3 vols. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1957-60)

-          Morton Keller, “The New Deal: A New Look,” Polity 31 (1999), 657-663

-          David M. Kennedy, ‘What the New Deal Did’, Political Science Quarterly, 124:2 (Summer 2009), 251-268