ABSTRACT
To compare the Great Depression in the United States of 1930-1940 to a war is not unjust, although it is inexact. In foreign wars, a country draws together against an enemy; in the depression, the country was tom apart by contrasting ideologies and raging polemic, as in civil wars. Wars defy definitive history, as does this depression. The late T. H. Watkins, a small boy when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Watkins's sense of humor permits him to see Harry Hopkins, often much disliked, for the civilized and amusing man he was. The New Deal, Watkins notes, was "not imposed by cabal", as many would have it. His insight that "Americans commonly are politically inert" serves to emphasize the contrast between Roosevelt's vast early popularity and the emasculation by Congress of many New Deal policies by 1939. Watkins's book is all-embracing, but no writer can embrace with equal fervor so complex a subject.
