Description

An illuminating appraisal of the thirty-first president of the United States

This detailed account of Herbert Hoover's presidency reveals him as a staunch defender of constitutional government and one of our least understood presidents. Battling political partisanship while trying to place the needs of the nation as a whole over those of state and localities, Hoover found his program for America's entry into the new scientific era overwhelmed by profound changes in the social and economic structure of a nation entering a new age.

From the outset of his presidency, Hoover faced opposition for his programs from within his own party. Criticized for not understanding "politics," it was instead traditional party practices that stymied much of what he tried to accomplish. Personally blamed for the financial disaster of 1929 that ushered in the Great Depression, he was defeated in the election of 1932 because, as some publications of the time observed, the country did not vote for Roosevelt, it voted against Hoover.

Despite opposition at every turn from both the opposing party and the progressive faction among his fellow Republicans, Hoover in retrospect emerges, in the words of the authors, as "a determined spokesman for the traditional American virtues, hopes, and ideals of individual opportunity, personal freedom, and love of country."