Review by Choice Review
Every economist has at least one opinion about the Great Depression. Consequently, economic historians have been unable to establish exclusive property rights over the interpretation of this historical episode. Hall and Ferguson (both of Miami Univ., Ohio) offer no new research or unique interpretation of the events; certainly none so far as economic historians are concerned (see, for example, Jeremy Atack and Peter Passell, A New Economic View of American History, 2nd ed., 1994). Their volume is useful, however, for the authors' melding of a variety of monocausal explanations of the Depression (such as Milton Friedman and Jacobsen Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, 1963, and Charles Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929-1939, CH, Sep'86) into a broad multidimensional survey focusing mostly on the 1929-33 period. Because of the narrow period covered, the 1937 recession-within-depression receives relatively little attention. Moreover, the book misses some of the more important controversies, e.g., no mention is made of the philosophical debate regarding unemployment data during the Great Depression, or the fundamental structural changes in the substitution of federal for state and local government spending. Nevertheless, this volume is a suitable addition to economic history collections, lower-division undergraduate through professional. J. Atack; Vanderbilt University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
