The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression is a book by Amity Shlaes and published by HarperCollins. The book is a re-analysis of the events of the Great Depression, generally from a free-market perspective. The book criticizes Herbert Hoover and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff for their role in exacerbating the Depression through government intervention. It criticizes Franklin D. Roosevelt for erratic policies that froze investment and for the steps needed to stop the Depression. Shlaes criticizes the New Deal for extending the length of the Depression and for its effects on individuals.
Shlaes praises the model offered by Wendell Willkie before the 1940 presidential election, where the New Deal would have been scaled back and business would have stepped in.
The book begins with an anecdote of the 1937 recession, eight years after the Depression began, when Roosevelt adopted budget-balancing policies indistinguishable from the stereotype of what Hoover supposedly did. Shlaes presents her arguments in part by telling stories of self-starters who showed what the free market could have accomplished without the New Deal.
The book argues that members of FDR's "Brain Trust", including Rexford Tugwell of Columbia University, had connections to the Soviets and their interest in central planning.
Read more about The Forgotten Man: A New History Of The Great Depression: Reception
Famous quotes containing the words forgotten, history and/or depression:
“Perhaps you have forgotten me. Dont [sic] you remember a long black fellow who rode on horseback with you from Tremont to Springfield nearly ten years ago, swimming your horses over the Mackinaw on the trip? Well, I am that same one fellow yet.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)