Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression: A New View of Its Causes and Consequences. Ivan R. Dee. Chicago, IL. 2002. The depression years have commonly been identified and accepted as the 1930 s. Unfortunately if one were to take this view, as many have, it would not give the history of the Great Depression era its justice. Gene Smiley in his book, Rethinking the Great Depression, addresses many of the economic causes and their misconceptions regarding the Great Depression. Smiley carefully examines the historical economics that occurred prior and during The Depression. These analyses provide evidence that the Great Depression was caused by more than the stock market crash. The origins were rather caused by the psychological worry of the people, and compounded by the government, and the institutions put in place to fix the economy. 1 Smiley provides a new insight into the Depression and the belief that the government s policies and acts fixed the Depression. Smiley asserts that the governments caused the prolonging of the Depression and was the reason for a larger and more severe economic failure than what would have occurred. Rethinking the Great Depression searches to prove and excels at confirming that the economy during the depression was not stagnant, but rather it rose and fell much like today s economy. 2 Smiley identifies many factors that played a role within the economy during the Depression years. With the scare of a failing economy, people turned inward; going to the banks to take out the money they had trusted the bank to keep safe. However, as Smiley points out, the banks did not have enough cash or gold to convert all or most of their deposits. 3 This crisis can easily be traced back to the people s 1 Smiley, Gene. A New View of Its Causes and Consequences: Rethinking the Great Depression. Chicago, IL : I.R. Dee, 2002. x, 37 2 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 21. 3 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 27.
psychological fright, if the people had not all rushed to the bank, the economy, may have been able to return to normal. 4 Smiley states that the frightened people of America turned to save money where they could, they attempted to cut costs by ceasing all extra expenditures and the consumerist nation of the twenties fell. 5 Due to the new mentality of the American people there was a drop in the money circulating through the economy; therefore, it caused many businesses to close and an influx of jobless people in America. 6 Unfortunately the American public was not the only ones affected by the Great Depression. The federal government was also affected by this unfortunate historical turn of events. Smiley established and argues that the federal government was deeply affected and changed by the Depression. As the United States citizens suffered, they would find themselves turning to the federal government for more help on a daily basis. According to Smiley the government s new programs during the thirties, in response to the plea for help from the American people, moved the federal government into areas in which it had not been involved. 7 These new movements in the United States carry over into today s politics and government welfare system. These programs to this day are highly contested within political realm between parties and political leaders. 8 Rethinking the Great Depression explains that one of the first calls of help from the American people when talking about the food riots and the Bonus Expeditionary Army led by a veteran from Portland, Oregon. The Army was met by Herbert Hoover 4 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 40. 5 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 29 6 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 29. 7 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 153. 8 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 151.
with troops ultimately leading to Hoover s bad reputation among the American people. 9 This explains why Franklin Delano Roosevelt easily took office in the election against Hoover; further, the American people had lost faith in the Republican Party seeing it as a party that was not concerned about the citizens for whom they served. Unfortunately, as Smiley points out in his book, Roosevelt would prolong the depression with his hands on attempts to save the countries economy and keep the people employed. Smiley states that Roosevelt s first action in office would be to close all banks until the government could examine the financial crisis. 10 While Roosevelt attempted this, Smiley states that, This [the] rapid recovery did not continue. 11 Smiley provides a different side of Roosevelt that most people have never heard about. He also portrays Roosevelt s policies as the reason the depression lasted so long- something most Americans have heard the opposite about. Smiley s evidence is clear, the governments new laws and proposals had done anything but help. In fact it caused a depression within a depression. 12 These new government laws had produced more government spending, and FDR hoped to tax the rich in order to create equality among the people in America. 13 In his last few pages of his book Rethinking the Great Depression, Smiley addresses the end results of the Great Depression and the reason American society should examine and understand the era. Arguably Smiley states that society has learned in man ways from their mistakes during the thirties, but that it is not something any one 9 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 25, 15. 10 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 75. 11 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 78. 12 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 118. 13 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 108.
person should take for granted. 14 According to Smiley it is possible to learn further from the depression, but it would be ridiculous to believe that the people of today understand the economy and to believe it is impossible to fall due to an economic failure again. 15 While Rethinking the Great Depression identifies the reasons the depression was extended over such a long period of time it does struggle in several different areas. Smiley tends to only emphasize the importance of understanding the economics behind the depression, but unlike one of his goals- it is not necessarily easy for the average person to understand the language he uses within his book. 16 Unfortunately some of the jargon Smiley uses becomes easy for the reader to become lost in the amount of numbers and statistics Smiley includes. Smiley also struggles with making his thought process concise and clear. Smiley often opens each section with a title explaining what it will be about, but when reading it the reader is easily lost with how often he changes dates and eras. This is most prominent within his first chapter, he often switches between the early 1900 s, twenties, and thirties, but later in the book he addresses each era separately. On page twenty-four he talks about the thirties, by the end of the same page he has gone from the twenties to the forties and then back to the thirties again. 17 This problem could much more easily be remedied by attributing each chapter to a different era, and providing more explanation to each date that he gives. At times Smiley places a date in a sentence, but does not necessarily back up why that date is important to the Depression s severity and economic history. This occurs only on a few 14 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 161. 15 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 162. 16 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. ix. 17 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 24.
occasions throughout the book. Most notably this happens on page 47, he places several dates in once sentence, without very much explanation as to what the events essentially did to the American economy. 18 Smiley s analysis on the causes of the Great Depression is intriguing and original. His new ideas of the Great Depression are not only enlightening, but backed by plenty of evidence and statistics. Ultimately Smiley excels at persuading the reader to agree with his interpretation of the economic history and causes of the Depression. While Smiley falls short in several areas, and does not necessarily meet all of the goals he set out to as mentioned in his preface he provides an adequate amount of information to support his historical claim. It is important to note that Smiley asserts an excellent historical fact that the Government efforts to combat the depression made the depression much longer and more severe in the United States. 19 This new statement is supported by ample evidence and exceptionally valuable historical data and facts. In all, Rethinking the Great Depression is an excellent book and though it has a few short comings, it supplies superior information and innovative insight to the Depression. Smiley s insight helps the reader understand that there was much more to the Depression than the stock market crash, it was in essence the intermingling of the government with the daily lives of Americans in hopes to recover from one of the greatest economical downfalls of history. 18 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 47. 19 Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression, 2002. 163.