The author of A People’s History of the United States presents the voices of the New Deal, a crucial period that continues to inspire activists today

Zinn’s work of historical memory, in an elegant new edition, offers an invaluable glimpse into a too often idealized period and reminds us that political will, not political nostalgia, is what will allow us to build a vibrant left in the present.

In his foreword to this new edition, scholar Gabe Winant looks back at how the New Deal has been understood and misunderstood over the past century, arguing that New Deal Thought is an essential repository for the voices of the New Deal.

By situating the architects of the New Deal and its critics side by side, Zinn reminds us that the battles of the New Deal were as contested and controversial as those of our own time.

The anthology features: New Deal proponents, such as Thurman Arnold, Henry Wallace, Rexford Tugwell, David Lilienthal, Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, John Maynard Keynes, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself; those who thought it went too far, among them Walter Lippmann and Raymond Moley; and those who understood, even then, that it did not go far enough, including John Dewey, W. E. B. Du Bois, Norman Thomas, Lewis Mumford, and Carey McWilliams.