Well, last weeks book giveaway didn’t exactly burn up the Internets.  But I am going to chalk that up to a rough start here at TRR and perhaps the topic of the book.

This week’s book giveaway, however, could not be more on target in its topic.  With the economic crisis and Obama in the White House the Great Depression and the New Deal are suddenly hot topics. And what better way to study up on this hot topic then to read The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal.

From the Inside Flap

Everything you know about the Great Depression and the New Deal is wrong

We all learned in school that the 1920s were a time of unregulated capitalism that led to the stock market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Herbert Hoover was a laissez-faire ideologue who did nothing to alleviate the crisis–even as citizens starved and were forced to live in “Hoovervilles.” And the interventionist policies and massive spending programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal gradually lifted us out of the Depression, until World War II brought it to a definitive end.

The only trouble with this official narrative–taught in most history textbooks, and proclaimed as gospel by the media–is that every element of it is false. Worse, this unsubstantiated myth is now being used to justify a “new New Deal” in response to today’s economic crisis that could lead to a Greater Depression even deeper and longer than the first. But in The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, economist Robert Murphy fact-checks the myths, shows why they’re wrong, and delves deep into history to set the record straight. His “politically incorrect” conclusion? It was government, not free markets, that caused the Great Depression–and the New Deal only made it worse. The real “lessons of the Great Depression” are not what you’ve been taught.

* The Crash of `29 was caused not by capitalism, but by the boom brought on by the newly created Federal Reserve’s easy money policy (sound familiar?)
* Hoover made the Depression “Great” precisely by abandoning the laissez-faire approach that previous presidents had followed and that kept depressions short
* The bank runs of the 1930s were caused by government intervention in the banking system
* Government efforts to prop up wages and prices led to a full decade of double-digit unemployment
* FDR’s arbitrary policies toward businessmen resulted in net investment of less than zero for much of the Depression

Might Barack Obama be the new FDR? You’ll know, after reading The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal that if he is, that’s nothing to celebrate.

Want to impress your friends with your impressive friends and co-workers with your impressive knowledge of this popular topic?  Want to buck conventional wisdom and flaunt your politically incorrect historical knowledge?  Sure you do.

So simply leave a comment below and you will be in a drawing for a free comment.