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CHOICE Review

In 15 readable chapters McElvaine synthesizes American responses to the Depression of 1929. His focus is on familiar topics such as the relief policies of Herbert Hoover, the charisma of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the militancy of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Although drawing heavily from the extensive scholarly literature on the New Deal as well as from original sources on the 1930s, McElvaine adds his own spirited interpretive touch to the topics. The most distinctive conclusion is that ordinary workers with their erstwhile middle-class allies condemned greed and the ``unfettered marketplace,'' and promoted compassionate government policies on the economy. Their ethical, cooperative individualism rejected the amoral, competitive individualism of the 1920s. Faced with the growing loss of support in 1934, the New Deal turned left for political rather than ideological reasons. Not withstanding the down playing of Roosevelt's ideological awareness, the underestimating of Hoover's commitment to competitive individualism, and the mislabeling of cooperative goals as ``feminine'' (who can gainsay the ``masculine'' tough-mindedness of the CIO?), McElvaine illuminates the ``grass-roots'' impact of workers on Roosevelt, whose ``leadership meshed with the moral economic values of American society in those years.'' Public and academic libraries, community college level and up.-A.W. Hoglund, University of Connecticut