A compelling examination of a still-vilified monetary policy that has continued to show results in spite of conservative...
An accessible economic study of Franklin Roosevelt’s daringly effective monetary policy in the face of the Depression.
The first order of business upon Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933 was to abandon the gold standard, as New Deal historian Rauchway (History/Univ. of California, Davis; The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction, 2008, etc.) shows in this nicely focused work on the president’s gradual adoption of Keynesian policy—without actually calling it that at the time. How did FDR come to understand that the economy needed a policy “guided by the hand of man”? Indeed, Rauchway emphasizes that luck had nothing to do with Roosevelt’s policies: he was well-read and well-advised. At the time of economic crisis, bold new ideas had to be embraced, and Cambridge economist John Maynard Keynes was among a group of forward-thinking innovators. Having propounded that the gold standard was unnecessary and irrational in his work on the Indian rupee, he had subsequently set forth a grand scheme to get the post–World War I economy moving normally. However, the plan was rejected by President Woodrow Wilson, prompting the economist to write The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), which warned presciently of the cost of excessive reparations on Germany and lack of a stabilizing cooperation among the victors. Rauchway walks readers carefully through these first months and years of FDR’s presidency as he moved to raise prices, push through an inflation bill before Congress, and advocate for an internationally managed currency along Keynesian lines. Holdovers from Herbert Hoover’s failed policies were nudged out, and the new Keynesian thinkers were in—e.g., Henry Morgenthau Jr., secretary of the treasury, and economics professor Harry Dexter White. Moreover, the new currency program was actively used to thwart fascist extremism abroad.
A compelling examination of a still-vilified monetary policy that has continued to show results in spite of conservative criticism.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-465-04969-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book.
The co-founder of The Toast and Slate advice columnist demonstrates his impressive range in this new collection.
In a delightful hybrid of a book—part memoir, part collection of personal essays, part extended riff on pop culture—Ortberg (The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror, 2018, etc.) blends genres with expert facility. The author’s many fans will instantly recognize his signature style with the title of the first chapter: “When You Were Younger and You Got Home Early and You Were the First One Home and No One Else Was Out on the Street, Did You Ever Worry That the Rapture Had Happened Without You? I Did.” Those long sentences and goofy yet sharp sense of humor thread together Ortberg’s playful takes on pop culture as he explores everything from House Hunters to Golden Girls to Lord Byron, Lacan, and Rilke. But what makes these wide-ranging essays work as a coherent collection are the author’s poignant reflections on faith and gender. Since publishing his last book, Ortberg has come out as trans, and he offers breathtaking accounts of his process of coming to terms with his faith and his evolving relationships with the women in his life. The chapter about coming out to his mother, framed as a version of the biblical story of Jacob and Esau, is just as touching as a brief miniplay entitled, “The Matriarchs of Avonlea Begrudgingly Accept Your Transition.” Throughout, Ortberg’s writing is vulnerable but confident, specific but never narrow, literal and lyrical. The author is refreshingly unafraid of his own uncertainty, but he’s always definitive where it counts: “Everyone will be reconciled through peace and pleasure who can possibly stand it. If you don’t squeeze through the door at first, just wait patiently for Heaven to grind you into a shape that fits.”
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982105-21-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
A gargantuan but surprisingly agile and spellbinding biography of the plain-speaking, plain-dealing Man from Missouri. As depicted by McCullough (Brave Companions, 1991, etc.), Truman, though the first President of the nuclear era, was fundamentally a throwback to 19th-century midwestern ideals of honesty. Like the young Teddy Roosevelt in the author's Mornings on Horseback (1981), the pre-Presidential Truman most impresses McCullough as a battler against overwhelming odds: the failed farmer and haberdasher; the WW I captain who kept his unit together under deadly fire; and the scorned product of the Kansas City machine who won Senate colleagues' respect by chairing an investigation into WW II defense spending and winning a ferocious primary contest. With the stage thus set, the narrative picks up whirlwind force, following Truman from his assumption of the Presidency upon FDR's death—when "the sun, the moon, and the stars" seemed ready to fall on him—through the decisions to drop the atomic bomb; confront Stalin at Potsdam; send troops to Korea (the most important decision of his Presidency, Truman felt); and fire MacArthur. The book's main event, however, is the legendary "Whistle-Stop Campaign" of 1948, when Truman puffed off the political upset of the century. Readers jaded by Vietnam and Watergate may ask: Could any President be this serene, honest, and courageous? Yet McCullough weaves his spell, convincingly limning a politician who didn't lie, steal, pay attention to pollsters or pundits, or quail in the face of diplomatic or political combat (his major fault seems to have been excessive loyalty to cronies who betrayed his trust). Truman apparently really was, as his Secretary of State Dean Acheson said, the "captain with the mighty heart." Rich in detail, enthralling, and moving: a classic Presidential biography.
Pub Date: June 19, 1992
ISBN: 0-671-45654-7
Page Count: 1120
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992
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