Cover of The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America

The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America

It was the worst of times and the best of times. It was an era of unprecedented crisis and a time of unprecedented courage. In a single, comprehensive volume, The Hungry Yearstells the story of the Great Depression through the eyes of the people who lived it. Less concerned with the power brokers in Washington than with the daily struggles of ordinary people at the grassroots across America, it draws on little-known oral histories, memoirs, local press, and scholarly monographs to capture the voices of men and women in a time of extreme crisis. The result is a richly detailed narrative that traces the stages of the disaster chronologically without losing touch with the personal wounds it inflicted or the ways in which people responded.

Read more

Humane and compassionate, brilliantly researched, full of story and anecdote, The Hungry Yearsputs the reader at the very heart of the maelstrom that was the American depression.

Audience
adult
Length
epic · 608 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Great Depression: America 1929-1941 Shares history, great depression, nonfiction
  2. Since Yesterday: The 1930's in America, September 3, 1929 to September 3, 1939 Shares history, nonfiction, great depression
  3. From the Collapse of Communism to the Rise of Radical Islam Shares history, us history, nonfiction
  4. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression Shares history, nonfiction, great depression

“If you want more of the same (history about american history), start with these.”

  1. Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation
  2. The Indian Heritage of America
  3. The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800
  4. The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932

“If it was the great depression that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Freedom From Fear: Part 1: The American People in the Great Depression: American People in the Great Depression Pt.1
  2. Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America
  3. The Political Crisis of the 1850s
  4. Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Real life in Castro's Cuba
  2. Untold tales, unsung heroes
  3. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community
  4. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945