Reviews for California and the Dust Bowl Migration, Vol. 21

The average rating for California and the Dust Bowl Migration, Vol. 21 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-12-02 00:00:00 Charles Ross A very useful set of essays and compiled pieces from one of the greatest historians of American politics. There are some highly useful historiographical pieces in here, including an outstanding one of the historiography of conservatism and another helpful one on Hofstadter's Age of Reform. Here are some takeaways from the book: Brinkley strongly emphasizes that the New Deal was both somewhat ideologically incoherent and a pivotal moment for modern liberalism. He stresses major shifts among the "New Dealers" from an embrace of a corporatists approach under the NIRA to a consumer-driven economic model by the late 1930s. He also argues that the experience of WWII drove liberals away from a brief flirtation with economic statism (although not planning, a key fallacy of Hayek's) because of A. the growing fear of totalitarianism and B. the experience of relative chaos in the War INdustries Board and C. The rehabilitation of big business as part of the war effort. He calls the new model the "compensatory state," a government that corrects for the excesses and victims of the free market but does relatively little regulation. THis is a useful book for historians of liberalism, 20th century US politics, or for people taking their comps in 20th century US history. Not every essay was totally fascinating, but there is a nice range of topics, the essays are all fairly short, and Brinkley is an engaging writer. In particular, all historians could benefit from the short and lively essay at the end, where Brinkley spells out one of the best and most level-headed arguments for the public roles of historians I've ever encountered.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-11-28 00:00:00 Ruth Korn Brinkley is a keen observer of modern history. This closely related set of essays encourages the reader to ponder what exactly is meant by liberalism in the U.S. historical context. Starting off as a very readable intellectual history of an idea, it closes with an appeal to fellow historians to take greater responsibility for fostering intellectual discussion about history, and its uses, among the greater public. Chapters on Huey Long (and his legacy) and Oral Roberts (and his legacy) were most fascinating.