Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce
"The period this volume covers is crucial for an understanding of Hoover in his times. Freed of the criticism and the defensiveness that has marked so much of the literature on this presidency and its aftermath, Hoover comes through as the leader of the decade, the embodiment of its most remarkable aspirations. The essays themselves are first-rate, the editing and commentary by Ellis Hawley stimulating and incisive. This volume may be the best of the 'new Hoover' literature which has been appearing over the last decade."—Barry D. Karl, Department of History, University of Chicago
In this second volume in the Hoover Centennial Seminars series, seven scholars reexamine a major segment of Herbert Hoover's public career and in doing so offer fresh perspectives on the political, administrative, and diplomatic history of the 1920s. Drawing upon new materials and new insights, they reconstruct Hoover's transformation of the Commerce secretariat, explore his thinking and action in a variety of policy areas, and explode conventional depictions of Hoover's political conservatism. These essays show a resourceful and creative mind wrestling with the central problems of twentieth-century America and projecting solutions remarkably similar to current proposals for public use of the private sector.