New Deal Thought

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Edited and with an introduction by Howard Zinn

Hackett Publishing Co. (2003)

Paper • ISBN-13: 9780872206854 • US $10.00 • 472 pgs.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

This anthology assembles the contemporary writings not only of the New Dealers—the men who devised and executed the programs of the government in the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt—but also of the “social critics” who “gathered in various stances and at various distances around the Roosevelt fires.” Here is a sampling of the famous movers and shakers of the 1930s: Thurman Arnold, Henry Wallace, Rexford Tugwell, David Lilienthal, Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, John Maynard Keynes, and of course Roosevelt himself.

Here too are the voices of those who thought the New Dealers were going “too far” such as Walter Lippmann and Raymond Moley, and of those who thought they were not going “far enough,” like John Dewey, W. E. B. DuBois, Norman Thomas, Lewis Mumford, and Carey McWilliams.

In his introduction, Howard Zinn defines the boundaries of the New Deal’s experimentalism and attempts to explain why it sputtered out. The result is a book that captures the spirit of the New Deal—hopeful, pragmatic, humane—yet remains hardheaded about its accomplishments and failures.

PRAISE:

“They’re all here, all the famous names of the New Deal, in an ambitious compendium of major articles and speeches…. Considerable effort appears to have been made to unearth thoughtful speeches and articles from some hard-to-find locations, with only a few items culled from public documents and none from the mass media publications, all of which is commendable.”

Jay Sigler, Science and Society (1968)

“The volume … remains a valuable resource.”

Stuart Kidd, Journal of American Studies (2005)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) was a historian, playwright, and activist. He wrote the classic A People’s History of the United States, “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those … whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories” (Library Journal). The book, which has sold more than 2.6 million copies and been translated into 23 foreign editions, has become a cultural touchstone, encouraging interest in “people’s histories” in universities and activist meetings alike. In 2009, History aired The People Speak, an acclaimed documentary co-directed by Zinn, based on A People’s History and a companion volume, Voices of a People’s History of the United States. As Noam Chomsky wrote, “Howard Zinn’s work literally changed the conscience of a generation.”

Zinn grew up in a working-class, immigrant household in Brooklyn. At eighteen, he became a shipyard worker and flew bomber missions over Europe during World War II, experiences which helped to shape his opposition to war and his interest in the lives of working people. After attending college under the GI Bill and earning a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, he taught at Spelman College, a historically black women’s college, where he became active in the civil rights movement. After being fired by Spelman for his support for student protesters, Zinn became a professor of Political Science at Boston University, where he taught until his retirement in 1988. He wrote more than forty books.