Two Types of Liberalism in The End of Reform by Alan Brinkley

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In “The End of Reform”, Alan Brinkley makes it very clear that there are two types of liberalism. The first type came from conservationism, which is what can be titled as liberalism today. This form of early liberalism was as a result from the new deal. The ideas of this new deal were clearly stated as to help the American people come out of an economic depression. Essentially, the objective behind it was to keep the people alive. Due to damages of the great depression, it was a rarity to find someone who could support his or her family. The people of this country wanted two things; food for their family, and for the government to protect them from the discomfort of their current financial problems. This in turn created a reliance on the government.
With Roosevelt being of a progressive mindset, he wanted the government to be responsible for the people. This is where the second form of liberalism came into play. Instead of just taking care of the people by providing them with money therefore creating jobs, the government started supporting and helping minorities. During this, Brinkley states that the progressives wanted the government to take more power over the economic affairs of the country. The mindset of people at this time were that if one wasn’t born rich into a wealthy family, then he would probably be poor the rest of his life. The new deal was created to solve that problem by offering money to businesses therefore making it able for them to hire on more people to work, which made the unemployment rate decline.
The goal of the first new deal was to keep people alive, but the second was more focused on a reformation. Brinkley argues that the new deal was the end of a progressive push that just solved personal problems. ...

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...was very difficult for me. I’m not a huge expert in the knowledge of history, nor am I a very avid reader. It took a lot of researching of topics (such as Keynesianism, which is when the economy becomes better due to the people spending more on goods) for me to understand this book.
With Brinkley focusing more on certain people when writing this book, and their significance towards it, it is hard to understand what his point of view is. On a lot of the topics, he gives one side of a problem, but gives another side too, so it makes it very difficult to understand what he thinks about the topic. Due to Brinkley’s credibility, I know what he is writing is very important and relevant to the subject written about. I would recommend this book to someone who absolutely loves to read, and has a good understanding of basic principles of the New Deal Era and World War II.

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