The Big Read: The Grapes of Wrath, the New Deal, and the American political imagination.
In 1939, Steinbeck published the story of a desperate family searching for a better life during the Great Depression in The Grapes of Wrath. By that time, President Roosevelt had instituted the New Deal--programs designed to help such families and restore public faith in America. In this podcast Dr. Michael Fitzgerald, UT Howard Baker Center Fellow and political science professor, relates the book to the New Deal and its enduring transformation of government and the American political imagination.
On the night before Dr. Fitzgerald's remarks recorded here, the presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain faced off in a debate with a town hall format. In this debate, a questioner asked "Since World War II, we have never been asked to sacrifice anything to help our country, except the blood of our heroic men and women. As president, what sacrifices will you ask every American to make to help restore the American dream and to get out of the economic morass that we're now in?" Dr. Fitzgerald makes a reference to that question in his speech.
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