A Great Leap Forward

1930S Depression and U.S. Economic Growth

Bibliographic Data

ID7309145
AuthorsRonald Edsforth (Dartmouth College, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume99
Issue2
Pages634-635
Publication date2012-08-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of American History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/jahist/jas245
OpenAlexW2112305147
LanguageEN
Citations received18

Alexander J. Field presents a convincing case for a “novel claim: potential output grew dramatically across the Depression years” (p. 1). As a result, his book is a compelling argument that the record-high total productivity gains (or total factor productivity [tfp]) of 1929–1941 were the real bases for the successes of the war economy and for the “golden age” (1948–1973) of mass consumer prosperity (p. 106). The first and longest part of this important book is a significant revision of economic history since the Civil War titled “A New Growth Narrative.” Its six chapters are an exemplary demonstration of how careful and imaginative use of statistical information can revise deeply entrenched ideas about the past. Ordering his data into business-cycle peak-to-peak periods, Field is able to make a series of meaningful comparisons that highlight the positive developments of 1929–1941 usually overlooked by historians seeking to explain the persistent high levels of unemployment that justify labeling those years the Great Depression

Argument (complex analysis · Art · Business cycle · Depression (economics · Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Great Depression · Keynesian economics · Literature · Macroeconomics · Narrative · Political science · Productivity · Prosperity · Spanish Civil War · Total factor productivity · Unemployment · Economic Theory and Institutions · Economic Theory and Policy · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law

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