Building New Deal Liberalism

Jason Scott Smith is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of New Mexico. He previously held a Mellon Fellowship in American Studies at Cornell University, where he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of History and the Department of Government. In 2001–2 he was the Harvard Newcomen Fellow at the Harvard Business School, where he taught courses on the history of capitalism. His work has appeared in a number of journals, including the Journal of Social History, Pacific Historical Review, Reviews in American History, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History.

• 1. Reevaluating the New Deal state and the public works revolution; 2. Economic development and unemployment in the early New Deal; 3. Making a New Deal state: patronage and the Public Works Administration; 4. The dilemma of New Deal public works: people or projects?; 5. 'Boondoggling' and the welfare state; 6. Party building and 'pernicious political activities': the road to the Hatch Act; 7. Public works and New Deal liberalism in reorganization and war; 8. Public works and the postwar world; 9. Epilogue: public works and the building of New Deal liberalism.

'The book has much to praise. Smith provides an interesting account of many dramatic changes in policy, explaining how politicians and bureaucrats responded to external events … and to their experiences with the administrative difficulties and corruption that inevitably occur when establishing such large government programs. Furthermore, I found the book very pleasant to read, thanks to the careful writing and citations.' The Journal of Economic History