The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War PDF
Preview The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War
THE END REFORM OF NEW DEAL LIBERALISM IN RECE! AND WAR ALAN BRINELEY ROOSEVE LT mmmmmm M IHHP HHIIW I l I JII I FPT U.S.A. $27.50 CANADA $38.50 "Alan Brinkley brings his magnificent skills as a writer, histor—ian, and original thinker to bearon afascinating story the transformation ofNew Deal liberalismfrom the late '30s to the end ofWorld War II. No one has a finergrasp ofthe intellectual, social, and political cur- rents of this transforming era—than Alan Brinkley. His book is a triumph." Doris Kearns Goodwin WHEN FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT andhisDemocratic party won a landslide victory in the 1936 elections, the way seemed open for the New Deal to complete the restructuring of American government it had begun in 1933. But, as Alan Brinkley makes clear, no sooner were the votes counted than the New Deal began to encounter a series ofcrippling political and economic problems that stalledits agenda and forced an agonizing reappraisal ofthe liberal ideas that had — shaped it a reappraisal still in progress when the United States entered World War II. The wartime experience helped complete the transformation of New Deal liberalism. It muted Washington's hostility to the corporate world and diminished liberal faith in the capacity of gov- ernment to reform capitalism. But it also helped legitimize Keynesian fiscal policies, reinforce com- mitments to social welfare, and create broad support for "full employment" as the centerpiece ofpostwar liberal hopes. By the end ofthe war, New Deal liber- alism had transformed itselfand assumed its modern — form a form that is faring much less well today than almost anyone would have imagined a genera- tion ago. The End of Reform is a study of ideas and of the people who shaped them: Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, Harold Ickes, Henry Morgenthau, Jesse Jones, Tommy Corcoran, Leon Henderson, Marriner Eccles, Thurman Arnold, Alvin Hansen. It chronicles a critical momentin the history ofmodernAmerican politics, and it speculates thatthe New Deal's retreat from issues ofwealth, class, and economic power has contributed to present-day liberalism's travails. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 http://www.archive.org/details/endofreformnewdeOObrin ALSO BY ALAN BRINKLEY Voices ofProtest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People The End of Reform The End Reform of New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War Alan Brinkley 7^ Alfred A. Knopf New York 1995 — THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. Copyright © 1995 by Alan Brinkley All rights reservedunder International and Pan-AmericanCopyright Conventions. Published inthe United States by AlfredA. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House ofCanada Limited, Toronto. Distributedby Random House, Inc., New York. Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brinkley, Alan. The end ofreform: New Deal liberalism in recession andwar/ by Alan Brinkley. 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-394-53573-1 — — — 1. New Deal, 1933-1939. 2. Liberalism United States History 20th century. — — 3. United States Politics and government 1933-1945. I. Title. E806.B747 1995 — 973-9I7 dc20 94-21478 CIP Manufactured inthe UnitedStates ofAmerica First Edition
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