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What I'm Reading: "The Forgoten Man" – Naming Names…. And Not Liking It.

I’m reading “The Forgotten Man”. I’m on page 139. I can’t say how much more I will read or if I will finish the book. To say that I’m underwhelmed would be an understatement. It’s dull. I expected some real economic information about the underpinnings and policy decisions made in the twenties that set the stage for the depression, and how FDR’s actions helped or hurt the possibility of economic recovery, you know, policy A leads to B which causes C, that sort of thing. Yet all I’m getting is a continuous rambling about this person and so-and-so who would end up working in the Roosevelt government who had some misplaced admiration of socialism and or Stalin. If Mrs Shlaes is to be believed, it’s a virtual commie love-fest. The was she writes about this period, it is the socialist intellectuals who caused and perpetuated the great depression. Yet so much of the info presented feels like gossip and innuendo (there are such things as footnotes you know – see Ron Chernow’s “Alexander Hamilton”). She’s almost McCarthyist in the zeal in which she names names. She has mentioned so many names that I can’t keep them all straight; they have become “Forgotten Men”. I will continue to read the book, but I can already say that you will get more usefull information from the 40 or so pages devoted to this time period in the fun and concise “The Great Game” than from Mrs. Shlaes effort.