The Crisis of the Old Order 1919–1933

A prize–winning historian looks at FDR in the years from the Great War to the Great Depression: “Full of personalities and anecdotes and humor and drama.” —The New York Times

The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933, volume one of Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning historian and biographer Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.’s Age of Roosevelt series, is the first of three books that interpret the political, economic, social, and intellectual history of the early twentieth century in terms of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the spokesman and symbol of the period.

Portraying the United States from the Great War to the Great Depression, The Crisis of the Old Order covers the Jazz Age and the rise and fall of the cult of business. For a season, prosperity seemed permanent, but the illusion came to an end when Wall Street crashed in October 1929. Public trust in the wisdom of business leadership crashed too. With a dramatist’s eye for vivid detail and a scholar’s respect for accuracy, Schlesinger brings to life the era that gave rise to FDR and his New Deal and changed the public face of the United States forever.

“While a lot of ink has been spilled profiling FDR, Schlesinger's three-volume work remains among the best efforts.” —Library Journal

“Probably no more thoughtful or surgical or compassionate study of the period in the United States has ever been written.” —The New Yorker