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Freedom from Fear Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 by David Kennedy Oxford Univ. Press, 2001 992 pp., $22.50, paper For the Survival of Democracy For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s by Alonzo Hamby Free Press, 2004 512 pp., $30

The tumultuous period from 1929 to 1945 has been exhaustively covered in scholarly monographs and popular histories alike, yet as two recent books attest, there is always room for a fresh look at what we thought we knew. With both vividness and grace, Stanford historian David M. Kennedy covers this era in his volume in the Oxford History of the United States, a series designed to acquaint the broad public with fresh research. At first sight, the 858 pages of text can appear intimidating to the general reader, while to the specialist the narrative format and capsule biographies might seem somewhat old-fashioned. But lively prose does not necessarily connote intellectual shoddiness. Kennedy's account is superbly written, and even readers quite familiar with the major events of the Great Depression and World War II can learn much from it.

In For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s, Alonzo J. Hamby of the Ohio University ably covers some of the same ground. He ends his account with 1939, but he widens his scope to include the economic policies of Britain and Germany. Indeed, much of his account involves a comparison of Franklin D. Roosevelt's measures to those of Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, and Adolf Hitler.

Both authors offer some surprising material. They note, for example, that during the "prosperity decade" of the 1920s, a significant number of immigrants to the United States were disillusioned by the lack of opportunity and hence returned to their homelands. Included were nearly a third of the Poles, Slovaks, and Croatians; about half the Italians; and over 50 percent of the Greeks, Russians, Rumanians, and Bulgarians. Furthermore, many Americans remained impoverished longer than is often supposed—in particular farmers, who did not fully recover until 1939. In other countries as well, the depression of 1929 hit hardest where the economy was already in decline, not just agriculture but textiles, petroleum, and coal.

The demythologizing continues with the 1928 presidential election. Kennedy takes issue with the long-held assertion that Al Smith's presidential candidacy of 1928 created the urban ethnic bloc that kept the Democrats in power for more than 20 years. The majorities of the New York governor were paper thin, Kennedy notes; it took the New Deal to realign the nation's politics.

Disputing the frequently made claim that the Great Crash of 1929 triggered the lengthy depression, Kennedy finds that most scholars are unable to trace a cause-and-effect linkage. And those cab-driving market speculators of pop histories and textbooks are largely fictional: in 1929, some 97.5 percent of the American public did not own a single share of stock. Moreover, and once again contrary to received opinion, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 did not have to be an economic disaster, for it provided the president with a mechanism by which he could lower rates without permission of Congress.

Kennedy and Hamby also present a highly revisionist treatment of Herbert Hoover's presidency. True, for years historians have debunked the notion that Hoover was a "do-nothing" executive, sitting icily in the White House while the nation sank into poverty. But now Hoover's many initiatives are stressed. Hamby sees Hoover embodying "a democratic version of the fascist corporatism emerging from Mussolini's Italy"; the 31st president envisioned a government that strongly fostered cooperation among business, labor, and agriculture, though unlike Il Duce he always adhered to voluntarism, not coercion. If pro-Roosevelt partisans found Hoover's conferences with business leaders in the fall of 1929 mere therapy, Kennedy says the president had few options, for the federal government had neither the size nor the power to cope with the growing panic.

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