Fire in the Hills: A Collective Remembrance

by Joseph L Arnold (Author)

"It is a rare surprise to find a doctoral dissertation that turns out this good. Arnold somehow manages to explain the significance of many of the New Deal's alphabet soup agencies while focusing his story on the main players' characters and motivations. Rexford Tugwell's insouciant megalomania are perfectly on display here, as is a nation's fascinated horror about his (the RA's), "Soviet Communes in America." FDR's interest in the program is traced back to his city planning uncle Frederick Delano, who would wax philosophic to a young FDR on the need for comprehensive regional plans. Even Dean Acheson makes an improbable appearance here as a land syndicate lawyer suing to stop a public housing program in the New Jersey countryside. But as is appropriate with a story about a social experiment, Arnold also examines the effects of the experiment on the test subjects. He finds that the early inhabitants of these new towns founded a variety of institutions that spontaneously mirrored many the New Dealers were trying to form from on high. There were credit and shopping cooperatives, non-profit hospitals, community newspapers. Most failed quickly, but a few survive to this day (Greenbelts co-op grocery is still there, check it out)." by Frank Stein