The New Deal and Modern American Conservatism: A Defining Rivalry

by Gordon Lloyd, David Davenport

Providing an often-overlooked historical perspective, Gordon Lloyd and David Davenport show how the New Deal of the 1930s established the framework for today’s US domestic policy and the ongoing debate between progressives and conservatives. They examine the pivotal issues of the dispute, laying out the progressive-conservative arguments between Hoover and Roosevelt in the 1930s and illustrating how those issues remain current in public policy today.

The authors detail how Hoover, alarmed by the excesses of the New Deal, pointed to the ideas that would constitute modern US conservatism and how three pillars—liberty, limited government, and constitutionalism—formed his case against the New Deal and, in turn, became the underlying philosophy of conservatism today. Illustrating how the debates between Franklin Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover were conducted much like the campaign rhetoric of liberals and conservatives in 2012, Lloyd and Davenport assert that conservatives must, to be a viable part of the national conversation, “go back to come back”—because our history contains signposts for the way forward.

Genres: Politics

135 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Kimk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an elucidating read for anyone who is interested in the roots of constitutional conservatism, regardless of personal political beliefs. It is a book that truly made me think. I have notes all over the margins of this book to an extent that I probably can't lend it out to anyone else. The framework of juxtaposing Hoover and FDR was effective in placing the study within a specific time and place in American history and helped illuminate how we have gotten to where we are as a nation today.