The Great Depression

Review also includes:

The Civil Rights Movement, Nigel Ritchie, 978-0750236393

These titles deal with subjects whose wide-reaching effects are matched by their complexity. The series format is of narrative chapters supported by contemporary photographs and quotations from a range of actors in the events. This is clear, comfortable to read and creates an unobtrusive but stimulating relationship between the historical evidence and the account drawn from it.

In each case, the reader’s attention is captured in the first chapter which examines a single moment of crisis – the Bonus Army at Washington in 1932, the crisis at Little Rock High School in 1957 – which acts as a focus for the subsequent discussion. The two authors have the space to create coherent stories which introduce young readers to the big issues and to the suffering, endurance and courage of individuals caught up in them.

Both writers know their subjects. Grant, in particular, shows his enviable skill at writing history with clarity and directness. There are areas, like economic theory, and the political and judicial structure of the United States, which are intrinsic to these subjects, but which are difficult to explain in any detail at this level without interrupting the flow of the narrative. These are acknowledged, but readers are, perhaps wisely, left to explore them more fully elsewhere. Both texts are supported by an index, a glossary, a table of major dates, and a list of sources for further research.