I have been trying to find some quality books or textbooks about the great depression. Considering the importance of the great depression in history, there is not a staggering amount of books regarding the period. However I have compiled a list of what I have discovered so far and I would welcome any comments or suggestions of other titles.

Both ebay.com and ebay.co.uk obviously have a few items relating to the great depression. After checking Amazon and the rest of cyberspace I was able to come up with the following list of books about the great depression.

The first book I came across was by Studs Terkel called Hard Times: An Oral History of The Great Depression. This book records the great depression in fine detail, by bringing together a collection of accounts of the great depression, by those who actually lived during the time. It also shows an opposite viewpoint by containing memories of those who maged to stay rich during the great depression. The book brings across the effect the great depression had on those who actually lived through it.

Second was a provoking book by Jim Powell about how Roosevelt’s New Deal may have prolonged the end of the great depression in the USA. FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression criticizes the New Deal suggesting that it actually lengthened the great depression rather than solving it.

One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickok Reports on the Great Depression is written by Lorena Hickok, a “confidential investigator” for Harry Hopkins. Hopkins was the head of the FDR’s Fedral Emergency Relief Administration. Hickok visited 32 states across the USA, from 1933-1935 to gain insight into how the great depression was affecting individual citizens. This book is her account of these travels and describes the struggle of millions of American’s trying to escape the great depression.

This book, The Global Impact of the Great Depression 1929-39, by Dietmar Rothermund, includes the effects that the great depression had on Africa, Asia and South America. These are the less conventional areas to study but Rothermund also explores the causes of the great depression. His book includes the effects of the gold standard and over farming in the USA. This book also contains information about the repercussions of the great depression particularly the rise of fascism in Europe. Keynesiun Theroy and other vital factors are explained in the book.

Britain in the Depression: Society and Politics, 1929-39 is written by John Stevenson and looks at Great Britain during the great depression. This book looks at the great depression in a slightly more optimist light, including the benefits of new industries and the emergence of the middle class.

Ben Bernanke had written a lot about the great depression and Essays on the Great Depression is the collection of these essays. Bernanke explains the reasons why he believes the great depression was so devastating, why some countries recovered more quickly than others and explores the fundamentals of macroeconomics.

These are the books that I have come across so far.

If anyone has any suggestions of books or any comments on the above titles, please leave them below.