prosperity bluejacket persuasion depression

books:

The American People in World War II: Freedom from Fear, Part Two (The Oxford History of the United States, V. ...

3 reviews
David M. Kennedy

Oxford University Press, USA, 2003

Fun to Read, and Insightful
I'm old enough to have live through the eventful 16-years (1929-1945)covered by Prof. David Kennedy's 2-volume history of that period of modern American history; for about half of that time, I was intellectually aware of what was happening; and I have read widely about the New Deal and WW-II. However, nothing I had been exposed to prior to reading "Freedom from Fear" gave me the context and an ...

The Life and Times of the Shah
Gholam Reza Afkhami

University of California Press, 2009

This epic biography, a gripping insider's account, is a long-overdue chronicle of the life and times of Mohammad Reza Shah, who ruled from 1941 to 1979 as the last Iranian monarch. Gholam Reza Afkhami uses his unparalleled access to a large number of individuals--including high-ranking figures in the shah's regime, members of his family, and members of the opposition--to depict the unfolding of the shah's life against the forces and events that ...

Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression

16 reviews
Studs Terkel

Pantheon, 1986

gives voices to those who lived through the Depression
As a former grad student in History, I found this book fascinating. Author Studs Terkel interviews people who lived through the Depression and gets their takes on that difficult period. We hear the experiences and memories of those who lived through it from multiple points of view. The book was published in 1970 and much of the research was accordingly done during the second half of the '60s ...

Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States)

66 reviews
David M. Kennedy

Oxford University Press, USA, 2001

An Iluminating Book
I've never read a book this long (858 pp) before for pleasure, but I found the Freedom book so illuminating. I am 87 yr old and the book covers my youth, from age 8 to 23--and oh, did I experience personally the depression and the war! It was good to fill in the details and understanding of things where I had fragmentary but profound experiences. I remember farmers dumping milk because they ...

The Crisis of the Old Order: 1919-1933, The Age of Roosevelt, Volume I (The Age of Roosevelt)

4 reviews
Jr.", Arthur M. "Schlesinger

Mariner Books, 2003

Bancroft Award Winner for History. Classic on FDR's New Deal
This outdated book won the Bancroft Prize in 1958 and the Francis Parkman Prize at the same time. The four-volume "Age of Roosevelt" is the an important history of the Great Depression era, written by a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author with his point of view coloring the work. Most readers probably should choose a more recent book on the subject, such as a good FDR biography. More ...

Essays in Persuasion

4 reviews
John Maynard Keynes

W. W. Norton & Company, 1991

Exquisite mandarin prose and clear argument
John Maynard Keynes at his most beguiling. A series of essays that have not lost their power despite the passage of 70 years or so. As a prose stylist Maynard Keynes could equal his friends Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster, and he does so in this volume. Perhaps the apogee of essay writing of the Oxford/Cambridge type, this volume has a charm that is absent from his longer works (General ...

Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919

31 reviews
Stephen Puleo

Beacon Press, 2004

A Childhood Story Comes to Life
Growing up outside of Boston, my father told me about the molasses flood many, many times. It was a story passed down to him from my grandfather, an immigrant from Greece who arrived in Boston 9 years before the tank exploded. I always wondered about this tragedy, and this book brings it into full focus. It is well written and keeps the reader interested. I highly recommend this book.

Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression 1920-1941 (Norton twentieth century America series)

6 reviews
Michael E. Parrish

W. W. Norton & Company, 1994

Harding to Pearl Harbor - quite an era
Anxious Decades is a volume in the Norton Twentieth Century America Series that addresses the decades of the twenties and the thirties. Michael E. Parrish has taken on the challenging task of giving us a consice volume addressing all of the societal, political, and economic trends that occured during these vastly different decades. The 1920's, known as the "roaring twenties" were indeed years ...

The Great Depression: America 1929-1941

17 reviews
Robert S. Mcelvaine

Three Rivers Press, 1993

New Deal as Seen from the Reagan Era
This book was written in 1983, in the early years of Ronald Reagan's presidency. It's very interesting to see how angry the Reagan fans are at reading it. Biased! they cry, and so it is... forthrightly biased against Reagan, but intelligently skeptical toward the alleged success of Keynsian solutions to the Depression. Critics of FDR today seem widely to assume that the New Deal was strictly a ...

You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger (Bluejacket Books)

28 reviews
Roger Hall

US Naval Institute Press, 2004

Wonderful book
I have to admit that it has been some time since I read this book, but it's hysterical. I can still remember (from 1966) quite a bit of the dialog. Unfortunately Roger Hall's obituary was in the paper this morning and I started to look for another copy of it. It's a shame that he didn't go into the CIA, it would have been a much funnier world. Even though it looks like I won't be able to ...

A War, Peace, and All That Jazz: 1918-1945 A History of US Book 9 (A History of Us)

1 review
Joy Hakim

Oxford University Press, USA, 2007

War and Peace
We are using this book alongside of the Tapestry of Grace curriculum. It is an excellent source for chronological history. Joy Hakim presents the information in a manner that is easily understood for my girls in lower grades as well as detailed enough for my high school age daughter. I highly recommend her entire series.

W. E. B. Du Bois, 1919-1963: The Fight for Equality and the American Century

7 reviews
David Levering Lewis

Holt Paperbacks, 2001

Volume Two of the Magisterial Life and Times
With volume two Lewis completes his magisterial work chronicling the life and times of the controversial W. E. B. Du Bois, and this second volume is every bit as fascinating and scholarly as the first one which won the Pulitzer Prize. This volume follows Du Bois' descent from a founder and spokesman for the NAACP to his self-imposed exile in Ghana in 1963. Throughout the journey Lewis ...

A City in Terror: Calvin Coolidge and the 1919 Boston Police Strike

2 reviews
Francis Russell

Beacon Press, 2005

Good and in depth
I would have liked to have seen a greater number of references and footnoting for the book. While a very good history, it lacks what I would consider a true scholarly outlook. I do not doubt the research, but I have a problem with not being able to follow up on the research. Overall, this book is an excellent resource for the Boston Police Strike, especially in lieu of the results (the First ...

Since Yesterday: The 1930's in America, September 3, 1929 to September 3, 1939

8 reviews
Frederick L. Allen

Harper Perennial, 1986

"Since Yesterday" - seems just like today!
Frederick Lewis Allen begins this short book (346 pages) where he left off in his last book (?Only Yesterday?) - with the stock market crash of 1929 - and ends it with the advent of World War II in 1939. Allen skillfully weaves the minor events of this decade (the fads, books, crimes, machines, gadgets, personalities, movies, fashions, etc.) together with the major events (the stock market ...

Nisei Daughter

9 reviews
Monica Itoi Sone

University of Washington Press, 1979

Japanese Daughter meets Nisei Daughter...
As a real Japanese daughter in Tokyo of Today, I very much enjoyed Ms. Sone's narrative. This is a story about prewar Seattle and the life of Japanese-Americans, as well as her identity struggle during the war time. With the eyes of an observant Nisei girl, Ms. Sone tells us about people around her, and school life, both local and Japanese, in a positive (somewhat humorous, sometimes sappy..) ...

Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness

3 reviews
Joshua David Hawley

Yale University Press, 2008

excellent and needed
This is an excellent book that addresses an area of history that has not been seriously studied to date. Any serious reader of American history and political science, and American presidents in particular, will enjoy it.

Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s

2 reviews
Michael L. Cooper

Clarion Books, 2004

Poignant account of Dust Bowl era
After hearing author on NPR, ordered Mr. Cooper's book and found it to be a concise and poignant account. I recommend it highly. Not a pleasant "read," but the book helped me gain new appreciation for the grit (no pun intended) of those who lived through one of the most-challenging periods of American history. Left me feeling thankful my grandparents resided outside the most affected Dust Bowl ...

On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation

3 reviews
Robert Whitaker

Crown, 2008

A Script Worthy of a Movie?
The very title of the book suggests that a great deal of help was needed in overcoming one of the most shameful events in the annals of America's very dark racial history. The events in question have to do with Robert Whitaker's award winning story about what happened to a group of black sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta, in Elaine, Arkansas, just up the street from Helena, about a 4 hours ...

The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt

6 reviews
John Milton Cooper Jr.

Belknap Press, 2007

Two presidents not compared often enough
"John Milton Cooper...blends these contrasting and kindred elements into a masterful portrait of two of our most intriguing presidents," David Kennedy in the New York Times Book Review, November 20 1983. TR and Wilson are often considered to be the same, especially in the in the domestic realm. The New Freedom was simply an extension of New Nationalism. But Cooper espouses the differences ...

Rough Weather Ahead for Walter the Farting Dog

21 reviews
William Kotzwinkle, Glenn Murray

Dutton Juvenile, 2005

The best of the three Walter books...
I love this book! The illustrations take a little getting used to (definitely off-beat, like the other two), and the storyline is slightly subversive, but the whole book is just very funny (for me, as an adult), and my kids love it, too. It's the one book that I will cheerfully read them twice in the same night. Farts aside, it's actually pretty wholesome and carries (I think) a positive ...

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