False Dawn

by Sam Short
published on 23 March 2026

George Selgin’s "False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery 1933-1947" provides a measured and calculated investigation of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s efforts to lift the United States out of the Great Depression. Selgin, a professor emeritus in economics at the University of Georgia and former senior fellow at the Cato Institute, does not deliver a polemic against FDR in the manner the title would suggest. The book’s cover also does not give a clue to Selgin’s focus.

The reader is greeted with an iconic photo, likely recognizable from any lower division textbook or online article, of men waiting in line for a meal. The photo is misleading for two reasons. First, it is dated to 1931. Although relevant in showing a line of unemployed men presumably out of work from the Depression, it was taken during President Herbert Hoover’s term, not his successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the focus of the book. Secondly, George Selgin sets a specific expectation by using this photo. It shows men full of dread, uncertain about the future. Surely, this work will provide an intimate look at the lives of struggling Americans who found, as the title indicates, a false dawn in the New Deal.

In actuality, Selgin gives readers just over 300 pages of distant, erudite economic analysis. From his preface, Selgin does not seem to grasp who his work is directed towards. In the book's Preface, he writes,

False Dawn isn’t meant just for academics and other experts. Its intended audience includes anyone interested in the Great Depression or the New Deal or anyone who just wants to learn more about how governments can and cannot fight recessions and depressions. For those reader’s sakes, I’ve left out the more technical details of statistical and theoretical works to which I refer. I’ve also tried my best to avoid both economics jargon and the stilted mannerisms and bombast characteristic of so much academic prose. (xiii)

However, this book is not for someone who just has a personal curiosity about the Depression. Despite what he said in the Preface, Selgin does not leave his statistics, theories, jargon, and so forth at the door. Chapters like those on the Federal Reserve and the Roosevelt Recession greet readers with charts mapping the “Adjusted Demand Deposits, All Commercial Banks, Plus Currency Held by Public for United States” and “Actual and projected average hourly earnings, 1929-1939," respectively. It would also do the reader well to know British Economist John Maynard Keynes, given the prominence of his ideas and correspondence in Selgin's book.

Readers may try other titles like The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (2007) by Amity Shlaes, which is widely regarded as a scathing critique of Roosevelt more overtly than Selgin. For a more generous take on the president's efforts, H.W. Brands's Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2008) is an alternative.

Beyond these hurdles, False Dawn does accomplish Selgin’s intent as a critique of the New Deal's recovery. Banking, farming, the Hoover-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation (which Roosevelt used), the National Recovery Administration, and more are given their due. Selgin also commendably delves into the impacts of World War Two and how the nation avoided a postwar downturn.

With extensive references to both the secondary sources from his fellow economists and primary sources on the correspondence between government officials and studies released during the Depression, Selgin has done his homework. Curious parties need to have less of a grasp of history and more of an understanding of economics to follow along. For individuals with the curiosity of a historian and the expertise of an economist, False Dawn should scratch the itch, endowing them with a more quantitative and measured insight into the Roosevelt Administration.

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