The Forgotten Man by {author}: summary and why it matters

What it argues

Shlaes takes her title from a phrase of the sociologist William Graham Sumner, who spoke of the person who pays for projects others design. She follows several characters through the 1930s, including businessmen such as Andrew Mellon and Samuel Insull, officials, economists and ordinary workers, and gives a ground-level account of how policy affected them.

Her central argument is that the uncertainty created by the Roosevelt administration's shifting policies, the high taxes on investment and the regulatory attacks on business discouraged recovery, and that unemployment remained high through the decade. The New Deal helped some, she allows, but also harmed those not in the favored groups.

The book is narrative history, not a technical work, and its claims have been criticized by historians who note that recovery began under Roosevelt and that the policy record is mixed.

Why it matters

It changed the way many readers on the right think about the New Deal and supplied a popular alternative to the standard liberal account. It deserves reading together with defenders such as Eric Rauchway to judge the arguments.

About the author

Amity Shlaes (born 1960) is an American writer who worked on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and was a columnist for the Financial Times and Bloomberg. She was later the chairman of the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. The Forgotten Man was a New York Times best-seller in 2007.

Who should read it

Readers who want the center-right view of the 1930s.