Some years ago, I set out to write a study of the role of economists in shaping and reshaping American economic policies during the New Deal years. As that project proceeded, it became apparent that an introductory chapter setting out what Franklin D. Roosevelt inherited from the Hoover administration was needed. That consideration led me to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa. What I found there resulted in a book entitled From New Era to New Deal: Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy, 1921–1933 (Cambridge University Press, 1985). In the preface to the work, I wrote that the sequel would “have to wait a bit.” Claims on time imposed by other professional obligations have meant that the sequel has been delayed longer than I would have wished it to be.

In the preparation of this book, I have accumulated an extraordinary array of debts. I am especially grateful to friends and colleagues who have viewed the manuscript with a sympathetically critical eye: Robert W. Dimand, Burton C. Hallowell, Richard A. Miller, James Tobin, and Robert Wood. They, of course, bear no responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation that may remain. I have also been greatly blessed to have had the benefit of the exceptional secretarial skills of Frances Warren.