The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes (Paperback)
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The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (Paperback)
by Amity Shlaes (Author)
Textbook Details
* Paperback: 512 pages
* Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 27, 2008)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0060936428
* ISBN-13: 978-0060936426
* Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
* Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
* Rating: 
Textbook Description
In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes, one of the nation’s most-respected economic commentators, offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. She traces the mounting agony of the New Dealers and the moving stories of individual citizens who through their brave perseverance helped establish the steadfast character we recognize as American today.
The Forgotten Man Review
The Forgotten Man (TFM for short) is not a polemic. It is not an argument for a particular theory or economic interpretation of the Depression. Instead, the author steps back and lets the story tell itself. She has sifted through memoirs and contemporaneous accounts in order to carry the reader back into the mindset of the 1930′s. She focuses on a diverse selection of protagonists from that period, including opponents of Roosevelt like Andrew Mellon and Wendell Wilkie as well as members of Roosevelt’s “brain trust” like Paul Douglas and Rexford Tugwell. Note that in the context of that time, “trust” meant the same thing as cartel (as in anti-trust laws). Roosevelt was claiming that with his advisers he had cornered the market on brains. If so, then after reading TFM, my sense is that there was not much value in this particular monopoly.
Amity Shlaes: The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression HarperCollins, 2007, 433pp. This is a remarkable book which will forever change your understanding of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s role and the lessons to be learned from government intervention. Amity Shlaes makes a compelling case that Hoover and Roosevelt actually lengthened the Depression. They did this, Shlaes argues, by following bad monetary policy, which further deflated the currency, and by raising tariff barriers, which broke up world trade and reduced economic activity everywhere. Shlaes makes the best case I have seen that business confidence is the key to economic expansion and that each step of the New Deal was a further blow to business confidence. She also explains the view of the pre-government control entrepreneurs and investors who had created an extraordinarily successful country prior to 1929. This is a superb book well worth reading, studying and then thinking about for a long time.