The New Deal remains at the center of the national debate concerning the role and function of government--a controversy that reflects increasingly deep divisions within the American body politic. In an attempt to clarify and reframe the underlying issues, the authors of this book examine the principles, political methods, institutions, and programs that came out of the New Deal and assess their consequences and implications for the future. In the opening chapter, Robert Eden reviews changing public assessments of the New Deal and the questions that remain most divisive. Subsequent authors address specific aspects of the New Deal itself, such as farm programs, and regulatory, bureaucractic, and administrative reforms. Others explore the controversial issues that Roosevelt's political philosophy and programs raised. Among these are constitutional questions, enlightened administration, the presidency, electoral realignment divisions and party politics, and the political significance of the welfare state. The concluding chapter discusses the New Deal legacy in today's Democratic party. Placing contemporary political issues in a broad, constructive framework, this book provides new perspectives on a pivotal episode in modern American history and gives us a deeper understanding of the political, economic, and constitutional challenges we currently face.

From first to last the New Deal was a work in progress, a patchwork of often contradictory ideas.

In the historical narrative that prevails today, the New Deal years are positioned between two equally despised Gilded Ages—the first in the late nineteenth century and the second characterized by the world of Walmart, globalization, and right-wing populism in which we currently live. What defines these two ages is an increasing level of inequality legitimized by powerful ideologies, namely, Social Darwinism at the end of the nineteenth century and neoliberalism today. In stark contrast, the era of the New Deal was first and foremost an attempt to put an end to inequality in American society. In the historical longue durée, it appears today as a kind of golden age when policymakers and citizens sought to devise solutions to the two major "questions"—labor on one side, social on the other—that were at the heart of the American political economy during the twentieth century. Capitalism Contested argues that the New Deal order remains an effective framework to make sense of the transformation of American political economy over the last hundred years. Contributors offer an historicized analysis of the degree to which that political, economic, and ideological order persists and the ways in which it has been transcended or even overthrown. The essays pay attention not only to those ideas and social forces hostile to the New Deal, but to the contradictions and debilities that were present at the inauguration or became inherent within this liberal impulse during the last half of the twentieth century. The unifying thematic among the essays consists not in their subject matter—politics, political economy, social thought, and legal scholarship are represented—but in a historical quest to assess the transformation and fate of an economic and policy order nearly a century after its creation. Contributors: Kate Andrias, Romain Huret, William P. Jones, Nelson Lichtenstein, Nancy MacLean, Isaac William Martin, Margaret O'Mara, K. Sabeel Rahman, Timothy Shenk, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, Jason Scott Smith, Samir Sonti, Karen M. Tani, Jean-Christian Vinel.

This book provides a history of the New Deal, exploring the institutional, political, and cultural changes experienced by the United States during the Great Depression.

ultimately elevating public opinion of his administration but falling flat in achieving the economic revitalization that America so desperately needed from the Great Depression. Folsom takes a critical, revisionist look at Roosevelt's presidency, his economic policies, and his personal life. Elected in 1932 on a buoyant tide of promises to balance the increasingly uncontrollable national budget and reduce the catastrophic unemployment rate, the charismatic thirty-second president not only neglected to pursue those goals, he made dramatic changes to federal programming that directly contradicted his campaign promises. Price fixing, court packing, regressive taxes, and patronism were all hidden inside the alphabet soup of his popular New Deal, putting a financial strain on the already suffering lower classes and discouraging the upper classes from taking business risks that potentially could have jostled national cash flow from dormancy.

The New Deal shaped our nation's politics for decades, and was seen by many as tantamount to the "American Way" itself. Now, in this superb compact history, Eric Rauchway offers an informed account of the New Deal and the Great Depression, illuminating its successes and failures. Rauchway first describes how the roots of the Great Depression lay in America's post-war economic policies--described as "laissez-faire with a vengeance"--which in effect isolated our nation from the world economy just when the world needed the United States most. He shows how the magnitude of the resulting economic upheaval, and the ineffectiveness of the old ways of dealing with financial hardships, set the stage for Roosevelt's vigorous (and sometimes unconstitutional) Depression-fighting policies. Indeed, Rauchway stresses that the New Deal only makes sense as a response to this global economic disaster. The book examines a key sampling of New Deal programs, ranging from the National Recovery Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the Public Works Administration and Social Security, revealing why some worked and others did not. In the end, Rauchway concludes, it was the coming of World War II that finally generated the political will to spend the massive amounts of public money needed to put Americans back to work. And only the Cold War saw the full implementation of New Deal policies abroad--including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Today we can look back at the New Deal and, for the first time, see its full complexity. Rauchway captures this complexity in a remarkably short space, making this book an ideal introduction to one of the great policy revolutions in history. About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, the series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

Alan Brinkley, Melvin Urofsky, Harvard Sitkoff, and other leading scholars explore the liberal tradition in American politics, culture, and social relations.