As America struggles with an economic debacle akin to the Great Depression, nothing could be timelier than an authoritative account of the New Deal. In this richly peopled, vividly rendered narrative, Hiltzik describes how the urgent short-term relief measures of Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days evolved into a transformative concept of the federal role in American life. Rather than the product of a single ideology, the New Deal emerged from the clash of ideas held by advisors from very different backgrounds. With historical and psychological insight, Hiltzik sheds light on the lives of the gargantuan characters who fought for and against it. What emerges is a saga of how FDR managed to recast the federal government into something that still inspires: a unifying structure with the concept of social justice at its heart.
