The New Dealers: Power Politics in the Age of Roosevelt

Sure to be widely debated, this radical reappraisal of the New Deal argues that New Dealers created new markets in underdeveloped regions of the U.S.--especially the South and West--by weakening the Northeast's control of capital. Schwarz, a historian at Northern Illinois University and the author of books on Bernard Baruch and Herbert Hoover, credits FDR's New Deal with expanding state capitalism and building the modern middle class. His challenging study unfolds as a group portrait, beginning with sketches of Baruch, Hoover and William McAdoo, who in 1917-1918 ``brought into being a previously unimagined state capitalism for expansion.'' He then focuses on 12 New Dealers, among them Louis Brandeis, David Lilienthal and a trio of Texans--Sam Rayburn, Wright Patman and LBJ--who championed regional development. Schwarz contends that New Deal-style state capitalism would succeed today, had it not been derailed by inflation and waste from the Vietnam War, and by Reagan's deregulation and his policies favoring the rich. (Apr.)