# Recommend me a book on the Great Depression **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 1, 2005, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871 "2005-02-01T23:05:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/1 "2005-02-01T23:05:39Z")
I have quite a strong background on American History, but I’ve just realized I don’t actually know the mechanics of why the Depression happened. Does anyone have any ideas for a book that would cover it, isn’t too boring (this is just for my personal education), and isn’t oral histories about what life was like at that point (I’m mostly just interested in the politics and economics of the issue)? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/2 "2005-02-01T23:25:22Z")
[Just Around The Corner](http://waldo.library.nashville.org/search/t?SEARCH=Just+Around+the+Corner%3A+A+Highly+Selective+History+of+the+Thirti) ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/3 "2005-02-02T14:40:00Z")
So, should I take it that this isn’t a subject much written about, or is it just not that popular to read about? _Just around the corner : a highly selective history of the thirties / Robert Bendiner [1967]_ I would have thought with all the speculation about our current economy, there would have been something a little more recent. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/4 "2005-02-02T16:11:19Z")
_1929: The Year of the Great Crash_ by William Klingaman. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/5 "2005-02-02T16:19:21Z")
It is a period that is oddly underreported. There’s a new WWII book out every week, but next to nothing on the Depression. I realize that WWII is more exciting, but there was plenty about the Depression era that’s fascinating. There’s always Fredrick Lewis Allen’s **[Since Yesterday: The 1930s in America](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060913223/104-9629816-7116759)** ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/6 "2005-02-02T17:09:45Z")
The classic study: John Kenneth Galbraith, [_The Great Crash 1929_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0395859999/qid=1107364787/sr=1-21/ref=sr_1_21/103-1910303-2680626?v=glance&s=books). ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/7 "2005-02-02T18:21:20Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > It is a period that is oddly underreported. There’s a new WWII book out every week, but next to nothing on the Depression. I realize that WWII is more exciting, but there was plenty about the Depression era that’s fascinating. This is what I’m finding out, and it’s really a surprise. Is it a sign that American historians only like to concentrate on the triumphs of history and not the failures? (the huge numbers of books on Vietnam would seem to go against that, though) > [@Walloon](#): > > The classic study: John Kenneth Galbraith, [_The Great Crash 1929_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0395859999/qid=1107364787/sr=1-21/ref=sr_1_21/103-1910303-2680626?v=glance&s=books). I saw that one, but not being an economist I was a little intimidated. Is it accessible to the non-economist? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/8 "2005-02-02T18:34:49Z")
I read it, and yes, it is accessible to the general reader. It was a best seller in 1955, and hasn’t been out of print since then. Galbraith wrote a new introduction in 1997. If you go to the Amazon link, you can read the first six pages of the book. (When I worked at a hotel years ago, I checked in Galbraith, who was talking about a party he had just been at where he met “Yookoo Oono”.) ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/9 "2005-02-02T19:21:12Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > I read it, and yes, it is accessible to the general reader. It was a best seller in 1955, and hasn’t been out of print since then. Galbraith wrote a new introduction in 1997. If you go to the Amazon link, you can read the first six pages of the book. > > (When I worked at a hotel years ago, I checked in Galbraith, who was talking about a party he had just been at where he met “Yookoo Oono”.) Cool! Thanks for the tips all! ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/10 "2005-02-02T23:00:55Z")
I checked my shelves and next to Galbraith’s book I have another classic from that era, _The Perils of Prosperity 1914-1932_ by William E. Leuchtenburg. And if you click on the link to Galbraith, check out all the other links to Depression books on that page. There are bunches of them, all more recent. ---
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/11 "2005-02-02T23:05:18Z")
The following are gut-level books about the effect of The Depression on representative American families, not economic history. It’s fiction, not history, but John Steinbeck’s [The Grapes of Wrath](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140186409/104-6401373-0270314) is worth reading. James Agee and Walker Evan’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is a landmark of sorts. You’ve seen [this](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/fsa/evanspegs/evans3.jpg) picture. It’s an account of time Agee and Evans spent time with three rural families in Alabama in 1936. Recommended. ---
**Author:** ![batsto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b2d939/32.png) [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/12 "2005-02-05T03:13:00Z")
Orwell’s ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ is a good fictional book set during the Depression. Frederick Lewis Allen’s “Since Yesterday” is a good non-fiction. It’s not economic history and deals a lot more with the effects rather than the causes of the depression. And Woody Guthrie wrote tons of great songs about life during the Depression. Listen to his “Dustbowl Ballads” album. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-book-on-the-great-depression/287871/13 "2005-02-05T05:01:01Z")
[http://www.mises.org/store/product1.asp?SID=2&Product\_ID=63](http://www.mises.org/store/product1.asp?SID=2&Product_ID=63) Murray Rothbard’s AMERICA’S GREAT DEPRESSION- an Austrian School (libertarian) look at the subject. I haven’t been able to get my hands on it yet but it’s definitely a different perspective than the GD as a failure of capitalism corrected by massive gov’t intervention.