ABSTRACT
The New Deal is a response to the Great Depression, which was touched off by the stock market crash in 1929, and which led in turn to what was close to a total breakdown of the economic system. It is important to remember that the New Deal developed in the shadow of fascism and Stalinism. Whether the New Deal provided a satisfactory synthesis of the New Nationalism and the New Freedom is a matter of judgment; Roosevelt seemed to think it was Justice Brandeis seemed to have agreed. Viewed in the history or American reform, the New Deal represented, for a time, the culmination of that tradition in American politics. American reform liberals found that most of the demands that had been basic to their programs for many years had been realized, as illustrated by the startling triumph of Harry Truman in the election of 1948.
