Bogleheads

[lc130]

Any suggestions for a book on the Great Depression? I've already read Galbraiths book on the stockmarket crash.

I can find only rigorous economic studies or novels. Hoping to find something in between.

Thanks

Charlie

[NAVigator]

I would like to suggest a book that seems to match your needs; 1929: The Year of the Great Crash by William K. Klingaman. This historian provides through a wide variety of first-person accounts, a picture of the times from the perspective of economics, music, sports, literature, and politics. I found it to be quite interesting.

Jerry
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"I was born with nothing, and I have most of it left."

[tetractys]

Wikipedia is always a good source for info and references to books et all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

Best regards, Tet
_________________
"Near panic conditions prevail in financial markets. People want to know what lies ahead. I cannot tell them because I do not know." -- George Soros

[heyyou]

Studs Terkel often interviewed people who lived through the Great Depression, but that era was not necessarily the focus of his interest. I don't know his books by their titles. It has been too long.

My parents where born in 1902 and 1908, but their stories were personal, not broad views of the 1930's.

I've seen a movie of Woody Guthrie's life, perhaps on PBS. Have you read "The Grapes of Wrath"?

[Ducks]

Not a book, but PBS had a documentary series on the Depression back in the 90's. I can't find it to buy/rent (if you find it, let me know), but I found it on IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247103/

I also found this, which gives a link to an excerpt:

http://documentary-films.tv/film_depression.html

I remember seeing it when it was first broadcast and it was very well done.
_________________

Getting our Ducks in a row since 2008.

[wmcclain]

[SamB]

[MarcMyWord]

T. H. Watkins: "The Great Depression: America in the 1930s" emphasizes how "ordinary" people experienced the depression, and the political response to it.

I like reading straight prose history books, but I also enjoy seeing photographs of "the way things looked then," and as "the companion volume to the public television series," this book also has a lot of pictures.

Marc

[kenschmidt]

Memorable ones I have read:

Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 By David M. Kennedy (Pulitzer Prize winner)

Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depressionm By Studs Terkel


Ken

[Christine_NM]

I recommend Frederick Lewis Allen, a source for Galbraith. His books are:

Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's (published 1931)
Since Yesterday: The 1930's in America (published 1939)

New and focusing on the Dust Bowl is The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan.

[craigr]

[MitchellF]

I would strongly recommend "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl" by Tim Egan. It isn't a comprehensive depression history, but Egan looks at a fascinating story within the depression. It was among my favorite books I read last year and I am just in awe that anyone survived those conditions. It is also a lesson in environmental management and how unintended consequences can rear their heads in ways we don't expect.

[Rubiosa]

Ben Bernanke's ESSAYS ON THE GREAT DEPRESSION (Princeton University Press) is good.

[frose2]

I rather liked the relevant chapters in Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, "A Monetary History of the United States."

I read about 1/3 of Shlaes and gave up. Slippery, journalistic, not analytical.

One of the books I've been meaning to read someday (about the Great Depression in the UK) is Robert Skidelsky's "Politicians and the Slump." Volume 2 of his Keynes biography would also presumably shed some light.