Triumphs of Public Policy? Revisiting the New Deal and the Great Society

Author Amity Shlaes and former Governor Jim Douglas discuss the 1920’s, the New Deal, and the Great Society.

Amity Shlaes is a bestselling author who treats twentieth-century political and economic history. Her biography of Calvin Coolidge, a president who grew up in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, covers not only the life of the thirtieth president but also the events that shaped the man: the rise of progressivism and the tumultuous period after World War I. In Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, Shlaes takes her own second look at government intervention under Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, and concludes that in many ways Hoover resembled the New Dealer Franklin Roosevelt. In her most recent book, Great Society: A New History, Shlaes looks at the intentions and results of Lyndon Johnson’s follow on to the New Deal, the Great Society. Governor Jim Douglas, Executive in Residence at Middlebury, served as Vermont’s governor from 2003 to 2011 and is author of The Vermont Way. Amity Shlaes chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, based in Plymouth Notch; Governor Douglas serves as Foundation vice chair.

Co-sponsored by the Alexander Hamilton Forum.