Everyone is going to have a lot of fun with this book, for like its
predecessor, Only Yesterday, Fred Allen casts a microscopic eye
over the foibles of the the decade, bringing them into sharp relief
against the events which paralleled them. The pace and substance of
the years 1929-1939 are of such different character from the 1920's
of the other volume, that the period emerges as a time of change
and chaos and shifting sands, of economic and political upheaval,
of international unrest, leading up to the declaration of war with
Germany. He has introduced subjects at the moment of their
inception, with a forward look as to later developments, that may
seem at first confusing, but that ultimately ties a great many
loose ends together. He crystalizes our memories for us, showing
how successive steps of the New Deal grew, the one out of the
other: of the reasons back of much that happened too fast for
ordinary consumption. He does not attempt any profound
interpretation of the period, but simply presents it as a swift
moving panorama, of events and personalities and points of view. He
is gently satirical, he pokes fun at household gods, he makes us
see ourselves as others see us, and he has a good time doing it.
The book is a sure best seller, I should say, on the basis of the
success of the other, and on everyone's egotistic interest in
reviewing the things which are already part of life. (Kirkus
Reviews)
"Vividly and with great skills he marshals the men, the mountebanks, the measures, and the events of ten years of American life and causes them to march before us in orderly panathenaic procession."--Saturday Review
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