The New York Times–bestselling history of the first half of the twentieth century-five decades that transformed America-from the author of Only Yesterday.   During the first fifty years of the twentieth century, the United States saw two world wars, a devastating economic depression, and more social, political, and economic changes than in any other five-decade period before. Frederick Lewis Allen, former editor of Harper's magazine, recounts these...

In this dramatic and fascinating account, Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter shows how Franklin Delano Roosevelt used his first one hundred days in office to lift the country from the despair and paralysis of the Great Depression and trasform the American presidency. Instead of becoming the dictator so many wanted in those first days, FDR rescued banks, put men to work immediately, and laid the groundwork for his most ambitious achievements, including

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"From the author of the acclaimed 97 Orchard and her husband, a culinary historian, an in-depth exploration of the greatest food crisis the nation has ever faced--the Great Depression--and how it transformed America's culinary culture. The decade-long Great Depression, a period of shifts in the country's political and social landscape, forever changed the way America eats. Before 1929, America's relationship with food was defined by abundance. But...

Progressive degeneration of a poor-white Georgia family living in a tumble-down shack on worn-out land that had once been a prosperous tobacco plantation. A tale of violence and sex among rural poor in the American South, the novel was highly controversial in its time. It is the story of Georgia sharecropper Jeeter Lester and his family, who are trapped by the bleak economic conditions of the Depression as well as by their own limited intelligence...

"Taming the Street tells the epic story of the FDR's battle to regulate Wall Street for the very first time in the wake of the Crash of 1929 that ushered in the Great Depression. Deeply reported and vividly told, it provides a trip back to a time when the power of concentrated wealth in America arguably exceeded that of the federal government. Roosevelt's campaign to curb the excesses of the market, end reckless speculation, and mitigate the disastrous...

While their men fight on far-flung battlefields, America's women help produce what's necessary for victory. In a Michigan shipyard, four female co-workers forge strong bonds of friendship.

Through photographs, illustrations, and both factual and fictionalized anecdotes, shows what life was like in the United States during the Depression.

Ken Burns documents the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, when a frenzied wheat boom on the southern Plains, followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s, nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation. Vivid interviews, dramatic photographs, and seldom-seen movie footage bring to life incredible stories of human suffering and perseverance. Includes bonus features.

"Four stories of resilience, mutual aid, and radical rebellion that will transform how we understand the Great Depression"--