Great Depression Biography

The Great Depression was not a crisis for capitalism but merely an example of the downturn part of the business cycle, which was generated by government intervention in the economy. Had this book appeared in the 1940s, it might have spared the world much grief. Even so, its appearance in 1963 meant that free-market advocates had their first full-scale treatment of this crucial subject.

A Wall Street Journal and National Bestseller! The man who predicted the worst economic crisis in US history shows you how to survive it. The current crisis is not like 2008 or even 1929. The New Depression that has emerged from the COVID pandemic is the worst economic crisis in U.S. history...

For four consecutive years Shirley Temple was the world’s box-office champion, a record never equaled. By early 1935 her mail was reported as four thousand letters a week, and hers was the second-most popular girl’s name in the country. What distinguished Shirley Temple from every other Hollywood star of the period - and everyone since - was how brilliantly she shone.

The memoirs collected in this book tell of an America where families and neighbors came together to help each other survive America's longest and deepest economic depression. These are memories of ordinary Americans of a time now nearly forgotten.

From Pulitzer Prize–winning author and esteemed presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, an invaluable guide to the development and exercise of leadership from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The inspiration for the multipart HISTORY...

One of our nation’s most prominent writers discovers the truth about how to live a long and happy life from the centenarian next door in this “original and highly readable account of a splendid American life” (The Wall Street Journal). When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas...

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post and NPR “We come to see in FDR the magisterial, central figure in the greatest and richest political tapestry of our nation’s entire history” —Nigel Hamilton, Boston Globe “Meticulously researched and authoritative” —Douglas...

In 1920-1921, Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding met a deep economic slump by seeming to ignore it, implementing policies that most 21st-century economists would call backward. Confronted with plunging prices, wages, and employment, the government balanced the budget and, through the Federal Reserve, raised interest rates. No "stimulus" was administered, and a powerful, job-filled recovery was under way by late 1921. Yet by 1929, the economy spiraled downward as the Hoover administration adopted the policies that Wilson and Harding had declined to put in place.

Famously neurotic comedian Richard Lewis finds himself on a gurney in the ER at the age of 44, hallucinating from excess cocaine use and his body poisoned by acute alcoholism. The same dysfunctions that had been the basis for his successful stage persona and inspired his best material had, it seemed, turned on him. In this very funny, deeply honest, and inspiring book, Lewis explores how he got there, how he finally got on the road to recovery, and how he copes with being Richard Lewis sober on a daily basis.

A warm, intimate account of the love between Eleanor Roosevelt and reporter Lorena Hickok—a relationship that, over more than three decades, transformed both women's lives and empowered them to play significant roles in one of the most tumultuous periods in American history In 1932, as her...

The first full-length biography of the Nobel laureate to appear in a quarter century, Mad at the World illuminates what has made the work of John Steinbeck an enduring part of the literary canon: his capacity for empathy. Angered by the plight of the Dust Bowl migrants who were starving even as they toiled to harvest California's limitless bounty and appalled by the country's refusal to recognize the humanity common to all of its citizens, Steinbeck took a stand against social injustice - paradoxically given his inherent misanthropy.

4 stories of resilience, mutual aid, and radical rebellion that will transform how we understand the Great Depression Drawing on little-known stories of working people, What Can We Learn from the Great Depression? amplifies voices that have been long omitted from standard histories of the...

“At last, a biography of Herbert Hoover that captures the man in full… [Jeansonne] has splendidly illuminated the arc of one of the most extraordinary lives of the twentieth century.”—David M. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning Author of Freedom from Fear Prizewinning historian Glen...

In this heartfelt memoir by the Masterpiece Theatre host, Pulitzer Prize winner, and groundbreaking New York Times columnist, Russell Baker traces his youth in the mountains of rural Virginia. When Baker was only five, his father died. His mother, strong-willed and matriarchal, never looked back. After all, she had three children to raise. These were Depression years, and Mrs. Baker moved her fledgling family to Baltimore. Baker's mother was determined her children would succeed, and we know her regimen worked for Russell.

The instant classic that changed the way we saw World War II and an entire generation of Americans, from the beloved journalist whose own iconic career has lasted more than fifty years. In this magnificent testament to a nation and her people, Tom Brokaw brings to life the extraordinary stories...

From an award-winning journalist comes this real-life cloak-and-dagger tale of Vera Atkins, one of Britain’s premiere secret agents during World War II. As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special...

“An illuminating account of how Franklin D. Roosevelt’s struggles with polio steeled him for the great struggles of the Depression and of World War II.”—Jon Meacham “A valuable book for anyone who wants to know how adversity shapes character. By understanding how FDR became a deeper...

An “epic and intimate” (David M. Kennedy) portrait of four generations of the Morgenthau family, a dynasty of power brokers and public officials with an outsize—and previously unmapped—influence extending from daily life in New York City to the shaping of the American Century...

At 95 years old, Marjorie "Madge" Ellen Street finally gets to writing down and telling her life story. At the end of the story, she has a few "featurette" short stories, as well as an interview with her grandson Ryan, with some deep questions about the lessons of her life, a short story about her second husband Peter Street, written by his son Mike Street, birth to 44 and a half, July 1963. Finally, a bonus short story, to Peter’s life story, age 44 and a half to 73, as told by Madge Street.

I would like to be remembered as someone who made people smile.' One of the great icons of our time, Khushwant Singh, 95, is a man of contradictions. An agnostic who's well-versed in the holy scriptures; a vocal champion of free speech who supported the Emergency; a 'dirty old man' who...