Reviews for American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work

The average rating for American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-11-23 00:00:00 Bradley Leifermann Nick Taylor's American-Made offers a detailed examination of the New Deal's biggest and most successful project, the Works Progress Administration. This is something of a misnomer as the book is broader in scope; often it reads like a general history of FDR's presidency that occasionally zooms in to focus in on the WPA's activities. Which is fine: Taylor is an incisive, engaging writer with an eye for human detail and pleasurable portraits (especially of the WPA's godfather, Harry Hopkins), which makes the book a compelling read even for casual history buffs. He shows the WPA's wide-ranging programs - from public works projects and disaster relief to archaeological and historical catalogs, to funding writers, theater companies (there's a fun chapter on Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater) and artists - impacted the country in a wide variety of ways, not only providing brute work for the unemployed but making use of a wide range of talents. A lot of WPA projects - historical surveys, a crucial tool for any researchers, and public art projects - remain intact today, attesting to its impact. Taylor shows that the WPA, despite its success, fell victim to political sniping as the Dies Committee viewed it as a haven for Communists; and the wartime boom after Pearl Harbor rendered it obsolete. Still, few will come away from Taylor's book without appreciating the WPA's lasting achievements - one of the most productive uses of government aide in American history.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-11-18 00:00:00 Otto Maan I read this book because I've increasingly been thinking that we need something like the New Deal today. The history was very interesting but it got a little too long and I lost interest. My biggest issue is that Taylor is so obviously pro-New Deal that he does a pretty crappy job of explaining any criticism. Perhaps there is no good criticism but I want to make my own mind up about that. Instead, the implication behind any opposing views was that they were made by a bunch of morons.