This paper is a review of Jeansonne Glen’s biography “Messiah of the Masses: Huey P. Long and the Great Depression”. To the reader, the biography seems like more of a tall tale filled with corruption, manipulation, and deceit. Unfortunately for the citizens of Louisiana, in 1928 Huey Pierce “Kingfish” Long became the governor of the state of Louisiana. The author doesn’t believe Long to be a saint nor a sinner; however, he does believe Long’s biggest priority wasn’t the people but himself. During Long’s political campaigns he always referred childhood as being a poor southern boy; however, Glen’s biography of Long discloses that he was raised in a massive sixteen bedroom residence. Long’s siblings all went to a secondary school and were eventually very successful in life. Long vacated high school before receiving a high school diploma and began working as a salesman for an oil company. He eventually went to a different high school and attained his high school diploma. Shortly after graduating from high school, he attained a career as a salesperson for a packaging company and began attending law school. Long thrived as a salesman due to his cunning and mendacious personality; unfortunately, he quit law school, due to him becoming impatient. After the death of his mother and …show more content…
Although the author wrote positive and negative things about Long in biography, the reviewer feels the majority of the information in the biography exhibited him as an aggressive, deceitful, domineering tyrant. After reading the biography, the reviewer doesn’t speculate Long was a saint nor an autocrat; the reviewer views Long as the ultimate opportunist who happened to do a couple of good deeds for people while taking advantage of his power as governor at the same
N.T. Wright: During my first semester at Northwestern College, I was assigned the book, “The Challenge of Jesus” by N.T. Wright for one of my Biblical Studies courses. This book and every other book Tom Wright has written has dramatically impacted my Christian faith. Dr. Wright has not only defended the basic tenants of the Christian faith, but also has shown how an academically-minded pastor ought to love and care for his or her congregants. N.T. Wright was previously the Bishop of Durham and pastored some of the poorest in the United Kingdom. His pastoral ministry has helped shape his understanding of God’s kingdom-vision which he is diagramming within his magnum opus “Christian Origins and the Question of God”. This series has instructed myself and countless other pastors to be for God’s kingdom as we eagerly await Christ’s return. Additionally, I have had the privilege of meeting with N.T. Wright one-on-one on numerous occasions to discuss faith, the Church, and his research. I firmly believe Tom Wright is the greatest New Testament scholar of our generation and he is the primary reason why I feel called into ministry.
Robert Remini tells the readers in “The Battle of New Orleans” that he wishes to educate his audience of the hard-hitting times our soldiers endured in this remarkable battle that made America the strong and independent country it is today. It is important to Remini to depict the heroic feats of Andrew Jackson “who became a symbol of what was best in American society” (Remini xi) because of his great leadership and determined heart.
The Wild Man from Sugar Creek: The Political Career of Eugene Talmadge, By William Anderson, Louisiana State University, 1975. xviii + 239pp.
The Great Depression tested America’s political organizations like no other event in the United States’ history except the Civil War. The most famous explanations of the period are friendly to Roosevelt and the New Deal and very critical of the Republican presidents of the 1920’s, bankers, and businessmen, whom they blame for the collapse. However, Amity Shlaes in her book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, contests the received wisdom that the Great Depression occurred because capitalism failed, and that it ended because of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Shlaes, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a syndicated financial columnist, argues that government action between 1929 and 1940 unnecessarily deepened and extended the Great Depression. Amity Shlaes tells the story of the Great Depression and the New Deal through the eyes of some of the more influential figures of the period—Roosevelt’s men like Rexford Tugwell, David Lilienthal, Felix Frankfurter, Harold Ickes, and Henry Morgenthau; businessmen and bankers like Wendell Willkie, Samuel Insull, Andrew Mellon, and the Schechter family.
Hoover’s nation was coming out of a war and was facing an economy plummeting into an unknown Great Depression. Hoover proclaimed a need for reform of the criminal justice system, the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment, cooperation of government and businesses, the development of education, organization of the public health services, and maintaining the integrity of the He called for restoration with action, and promised solutions to the economic crisis, unemployment, world policy. He however, does remind the people, “We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed.”
During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the depression, many Americans spoke their minds through pen and paper. Many criticized Hoover’s policies of the early Depression and praised the Roosevelts’ efforts. Each opinion about the causes and solutions of the Great Depression are based upon economic, racial and social standing in America.
Portrayed as a Southern demagogue, Huey Long, who was also known as King Fish, was a major character on the American political stage around 1930s, an era during the Greate Depression that brought a worldwide economic crisis; many people lost their jobs. According to Frank, Robert H. and Bernanke, Ben S., 25% of American lost their jobs at that time. Huey Long was good at raising his audience’s anger towards the rich. Unlike some Southern demagogues, Huey Long did not criticize African-Americans to seek support from racists; his target was always the rich. He said, “It is the fact that the rich people of this country – and by rich people I mean super rich – will not allow us to solve the problems” (Para 4). During the Depression, when many people lost their jobs and had trouble with supporting their family, the rich easily became the target of their anger. Huey
zShmoop Editorial Team. "Politics in The Great Depression." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
Shortly after the American Revolution, the United States entered an era of profound economic and social change that was dominated first by the Market Revolution and subsequently by Andrew Jackson’s skillful use of the power of the presidency to crack down on capitalist exploitation. Jackson’s first biographer, James Parton, however, describes the legacy of the seventh President’s administration as one fraught with controversy, “Andrew Jackson was a patriot, and a traitor. He was the greatest of generals, and wholly ignorant of the art of war. He was the most candid of men, and capable of the profoundest dissimulation. He was a democratic autocrat, an urbane savage, an atrocious saint.”
On December 23, 1814, Andrew Jackson rode his way into history. His victory over the British on that day made him into a national hero. Jackson used this popularity to ensure his victory over John Quincy Adams in the election of 1828. But who was the real "Old Hickory?" Was Andrew Jackson the courageous, honor bound "man of the people", or, as his opponents liked to think, was he a hot tempered, poorly educated farm boy? This essay will present both sides of the case and try to reach a conclusion.
The age of the Great Depression was littered with varying stories of extreme poverty rivaled by the contrasting stories of the .1 percent of society that possessed extreme wealth. President Hoover called the depression “a passing incident in our national lives” (cite 1) which proved to be a gross underestimation of the severity of the situation. The previous decades that brought roaring success and expanding technology was thought to be a period of great success that was earned through hard work and fluid government; and so when the economy collapsed blame turned inward and failure felt deserved just the same.
In the book, “Jesus and the Disinherited,” the author, Howard Thurman in chapter five expounds on “Love.” Moreover, Thurman, a black man in the early 1900, with the ultimate goal to offer a humanizing combination as the basis for an emancipatory way of being, moving toward an unchained life to all women and men everywhere who hunger, thirst for righteousness, especially those “who stand with their backs against the wall.” By the same token, Thurman experienced “Fear,” “Deception,” and “Hate” that causes internal, spiritual damage to those who choose compliance, isolation, and violent resistance over the way of Jesus (www.smootpage.blogspot.com). Notably, Howard Thurman’s message helped shaped the civil rights movement that
The book Under the Feet of Jesus by Helena Maria Viramontes shows you the story of Estrella and her family and the struggles they face as migrant workers. Among all the symbolism in the book the one that stand out the most is Petra’s statue of Christ, which symbolizes the failure of religion and the oppressive nature of the Christian religion especially in minorities. Throughout the book, Estrella’s mother, Petra relies on superstitions and religion to get her through the hardships in life. In tough times, she turns to the statue and prays for guidance. Her thirteen-year-old daughter Estrella is the first of her family to realize that she needs to stop relying on religion and take control of her life. This brings in a wave of self-empowerment, not only for Estrella but eventually for all the characters as well. In the book, you’re able to see how religion exemplifies the failures of religion in minorities and how it hinders the growth of the characters while helping some of them.
The Great Depression was brought about through various radical economic practices and greatly affected the common man of America. Although all Americans were faced with the same fiscal disparity, a small minority began to exploit those in distress. Along the trek westward from Oklahoma, the Joad family met a grand multitude of adversity. However, this adversity was counteracted with a significant amount of endurance exhibited by the Joads and by generalized citizens of America.
If Youngs’s thesis was to illustrate how the sufferings and achievements of E. Roosevelt’s life was what made it possible for her to become the influential woman that she was, then Youngs did a great job by incorporating so much of E. Roosevelt’s early life into the biography. But if Youngs did not intend for that to be his thesis then this book was a confusing mess that left readers wondering why he put so much of E. Roosevelt’s early life in the book but a minimal amount of her life during her husband’s long presidential terms in office.