Customer Reviews:
 Skewed Corporate Propaganda November 16, 2008
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
As a Great Depression buff (an avidity brought about by our current economic troubles) I wish-listed this book a year ago. Finally, I decided I had waited long enough and bought it, eagerly awaiting its arrival. The day it came, I jumped into it, laying aside a weekend to read it. By 10 am Saturday, I was concerned. The book seemed to tendentiously side with the Bankers and Industrialists while naysaying everything FDR's New Deal had seemed to be. Schlaes cast New Deal imagery as nothing more than Leftist hagiography and the FDR administration as riddled by communists, fascists and Nazis (and how such a rogues gallery of conflicting ideologies could have operated in a single White House I have not the foggiest). Suffice it to say that by lunchtime, I could take not another page and instead of reading the book, googled Amity Schlaes.
I think now she is the reincarnation of Ayn Rand. Now, for those who hold to Rand's theory of Objectivism, you'll love it (Rand of course was an ardent Nazi), but those who hove closer to Objective Reality and the facts and getting beyond Corporate propaganda are going to be SORELY disappointed. This book is nothing more than revisionism and a repackaging of the Corporate criticisms espoused at the time by the DuPonts and others who hated the fact the Average American was set to get a New Deal. Schlaes consistently cites the DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE as a thermometer of the economy when any seriously economic-minded person knows THE STOCK MARKET IS NOT THE ECONOMY. Lately, in fact, the Stock Market has tended to be the anti-economy, functioning to damage and perhaps ultimately obliterate the real economy as anti-matter does to matter. Using bogus, cherry picked stats, Schlaes weaves the typical, alternate reality of the corporatists and right wing and for those of us in the 'reality-based community' it is a tome of odious timbre. I will be looking for a more accurate and centrist discussion of the Great Depression's fall out and would appreciate any who can point me in that direction.
 A Valuable Lesson from History November 16, 2008
I bought this book because I had heard when I was a young man 60+ years ago, the government would be giving away money before it would let us slip into another great depression. Since that is now happening, I wanted to get an idea of what might be headed our way based on the last great disaster. This book, very well written, gives an excellent narrative about those events and what one might expect. I'm not yet completely through it but from the half way point, I highly recommend reading this book. It is very readable and I'm enjoying it emensely.
 The Forgotten Man:A New History of the Great Depression November 9, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was very good, as it gave some insight into what was really going on in Washington during the Depression. It wasn't the sugar-coated version that we learned in school, that FDR was the Messiah of the 30's. It tells how FDR actually made the Depression worse and deeper due to the misguided notion that the governement can fix anything.
FDR was out to get the big corporations, and share their prosperity. Sound familiar? The scarey thing about the book was that if you changed the names and the dates, you'd think it was written about 2008.
The Forgotten Man November 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Forgotten Man is the best book I've ever read on the subject of the '29 Crash and subsequent depression. If you really want to learn about what really happened in this country nearly 80 years ago and how many of the Roosevelt policies exascerbated and prolonged the situation, this is the book for you. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in that momentous period in American history, and how it relates to and if it compares to what is happening today in this country.
forgotten man November 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
excellent,readable,analytical,for comparison with current World recession,explores real contributions of individual leaders,sees danger of too much government intervention.
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