Get Free Ebook The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash
The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash. A work could obligate you to constantly improve the expertise and also experience. When you have no sufficient time to boost it directly, you could obtain the experience as well as expertise from checking out guide. As everyone understands, publication The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash is very popular as the home window to open the world. It indicates that checking out publication The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash will provide you a brand-new method to find every little thing that you require. As the book that we will provide below, The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash
Get Free Ebook The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash
The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash. Negotiating with checking out behavior is no need. Reading The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash is not type of something offered that you can take or not. It is a thing that will change your life to life much better. It is the important things that will certainly provide you lots of points worldwide and also this universe, in the real world and also right here after. As what will certainly be provided by this The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash, how can you bargain with things that has many benefits for you?
This publication The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash offers you better of life that could develop the quality of the life better. This The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash is just what individuals now need. You are here and also you could be precise and certain to get this publication The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash Never question to obtain it also this is simply a book. You could get this publication The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash as one of your compilations. But, not the compilation to show in your bookshelves. This is a priceless publication to be reading compilation.
How is to make sure that this The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash will not presented in your bookshelves? This is a soft file book The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash, so you can download The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash by acquiring to obtain the soft file. It will certainly reduce you to review it every single time you need. When you feel lazy to relocate the printed book from home to office to some location, this soft data will alleviate you not to do that. Due to the fact that you could just conserve the information in your computer unit as well as device. So, it allows you review it anywhere you have determination to review The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash
Well, when else will you find this possibility to obtain this book The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash soft file? This is your excellent possibility to be right here as well as get this terrific book The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash Never leave this publication prior to downloading this soft file of The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash in link that we give. The Life Of Herbert Hoover: Master Of Emergencies, 1917-1918, By George H. Nash will actually make a good deal to be your friend in your lonesome. It will certainly be the very best partner to improve your operation and also leisure activity.
The third volume in what the National Review has called a "magisterial work of scholarship on one of our least-known presidents, and an important era in American history."
National Review has called a "magisterial work of scholarship on one of our least-known presidents, and an important era in American history."
The entry of the United States into the First World War in late 1911 found Herbert Hoover at a crossroads. Three years earlier, he had been a successful mining engineer in London. Then, as the war intensified in Europe, Hoover founded and led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which provided desperately needed fuel to more than nine million Belgian and French citizens trapped between the German army of occupation and the British naval blockade. That emergency undertaking eventually evolved into one of the greatest humanitarian enterprises in history. It also brought Hoover into international prominence.
Here Herbert Hoover moves toward Washington and center stage in his own country. Shortly after the United States's declaration of war, he entered into able service under Woodrow Wilson as a member of the President's War Cabinet and U.S. Food Administration. His goal was to standardize food production to control surging food prices, and to create surpluses of exportable foodstuffs for America's allies. "Food will win the war" became Hoover's slogan.
Hoover encountered the tumult of district politics and became both agent and catalyst of the moment in American lives when a traditionally decentralized economy was coming under price control and other forms of governmental restraint. We see Hoover as builder and bureaucrat, a man who brought force, drive, and ability into the service of his country.
- Sales Rank: #1498158 in Books
- Published on: 1996-09-17
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.60" h x 1.90" w x 6.40" l, 2.40 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 672 pages
From Publishers Weekly
"Food will win the war," proclaimed engineer-turned-bureaucrat Herbert Hoover, with a tinge of self-promotion, as head of the U.S. Food Administration, the WWI agency responsible for feeding America's troops overseas. While cloaking his efforts in the comforting language of voluntarism, the nervous, high-strung food czar, incessantly smoking Havana cigars, used a mix of price controls, exhortations, constraints and propaganda to seduce the general populace into eating less and reducing waste so our fighting forces could get adequate food supplies. As chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, Hoover orchestrated a massive emergency operation that provided desperately needed food to millions of Belgian and French citizens trapped between the German army of occupation and the British naval blockade. Hoover became a hero to legions of American housewives, middle-class professionals and businessmen, though farmers, livestock producers and middlemen saw him as a meddling, insensitive outsider, an image that dogged the future president all the way to the White House. In this absorbing third installment of a multivolume biography, Nash, a historian of conservatism, reconstructs an important chapter in American history. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This is the third volume in the author's ongoing biography of the 31st president. The first volume, The Engineer (LJ 3/1/83), covered the first 40 years of Hoover's life; the second, The Humanitarian (LJ 10/15/88), covered the years from 1914 to 1917. Since the current volume covers only slightly over a year and half and ends with Hoover still a decade away from his election as president, one hesitates to imagine how many more volumes will be required to bring the project to completion. As in the case of the earlier volumes, the current work is painstakingly researched and solidly written. It should be acquired by any library owning the first two volumes and by all academic and research libraries specializing in U.S. history. For public libraries desiring a less exhaustive treatment of the subject, such earlier, single-volume biographies as Joan Hoff Wilson's Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive (1975) or Richard Norton Smith's An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (LJ 6/15/84)?both of which are currently in print?will probably suffice.
-?Scott K. Wright, Univ. of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The third volume of Nash's definitive biography further enhances the stature of a too often disparaged great American. Nash begins with the US entry into WW I in April 1917, at a point when Hoover's extraordinary humanitarian efforts had already saved nearly ten million Belgians and French from starvation. Nash records the myriad problems Hoover faced when President Wilson made him the national ``food administrator,'' charged with ensuring that Americans had enough to eat while still exporting sufficient food to keep the embattled Allies in the war. Hoover was labeled the ``food dictator'' by hostile Farm Belt congressmen when he tried to mobilize and impose national controls on agriculture, and he quickly aroused the ire of farmers as well. But the former mining engineer was right: He clearly foresaw the problems of runaway inflation and serious food shortages as countries bid for food on the open market during panic times. Ironically, this quintessentially individualist businessman fought for, and got, strict government control of food production, food prices, and export quotas. As Nash shows, Hoover's finely tuned management abilities and determination accomplished the impossible: Neither Americans nor their allies went hungry. (``Food will win the war,'' Hoover argued, and Wilson listened.) He sketches a portrait of an intelligent, exceedingly complex man who lacked social graces but, in contrast to his tough exterior, frequently cried in private at the plight of the Belgian people. He was a marvel of dedication and hard work. Nash leaves the ``Great Engineer'' using his formidable abilities in the postWW I world to halt the spread of Communism over a devastated Europe by monitoring food distribution. Nash's well-researched reporting of Hoover's public life in 191718 should be of interest to scholars, but for the general reader, an entire volume covering two years in Hoover's life may offer more detail than they need. (41 photos, not seen) -- Copyright �1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
The "Clean Plate" Czar
By Thomas J. Burns
It is hard to imagine today, but there was a time not so very long ago when America came perilously close to running out of food. Three years of World War I, European pestilence, international speculation, and the imbalance of American farming and processing interests had taken their toll on the globe's food supply. In the spring of 1917 President Woodrow Wilson became painfully aware that the projected output of American grain and meats would not meet domestic and allied needs for the coming year of the war as the United States entered the fray. Having made the fateful decision to enter the war, Wilson went on to assume even greater powers: the appointment of a czar who would, in effect, tell Americans what and how much they could eat.
It did not take long to identify the candidate for the job. Herbert Hoover, the self-made mining millionaire who coordinated emergency food relief services for Europe during the first three years of the war, returned to America a hero and accepted Wilson's invitation to manage American food. Hoover's personal credentials were impeccable: magnificent administrator, philanthropist, and friend of business. While Hoover the man was acceptable to the Senate, his mandate-outlined in legislation known as the Lever Act-was another matter. The Senate refused to accept price controls, and sent Hoover on his way to battle with what it believed were sufficient restraints.
When one takes the long view of this work, the third volume of Hoover's biography, what gradually dawns on the reader is the sense that Hoover, with an international sense of the size of the crisis, was prepared to execute war powers in ways that had not been seen since Lincoln. Neither the Senate nor the business community had truly taken the measure of this man, though biographer Nash strongly implies that Wilson knew exactly what he was doing and was pleased with the results. Hoover, for his part, saved the western world from starving with a three pronged attack: he essentially usurped the authority of several cabinet departments, he mobilized public opinion, and he stretched the Lever Act through bureaucratic legerdemain into a virtual Magna Carta.
If Congress had balked at price controls on staples such as wheat and pork, Hoover found another means to achieve the same end. Having calculated modest prices for food staples that would avoid inflation and speculation, Hoover found provisions in the Lever Act permitting him to issue government licenses to farmers, granaries, packinghouses, mills and even grocers. Those who refused to operate within the Hoover price structure were refused licenses. To attempt to do business without a license was risky, because Hoover, for all intents and purposes, was also acting secretary of transportation, controlling rail and water priorities. Unions, farmers, and particularly the meat packing trust howled, but Hoover had prepared for that eventuality.
Hoover's heavy-handed methods worked as well as they did because he had wisely joined food conservation to war fervor. One of his first acts as food administrator was a public awareness crusade, pitched specifically at women, to limit portions of food served at meals, to designate national meatless days, to establish new ratios of flours for breads, etc. Millions of households signed pledge cards to observe the Hoover guidelines, and for a time a "clean plate" ethic seized the country. In the face of this domestic crusade, the whining of Swift, Armor, Wilson, and other food producers over reduced profits seemed petty and even unpatriotic. There were a sizable number of Americans who found the entire concept hokey, but Hoover was able to hold together his pantry army just long enough to see through till the end of the war.
There were, of course, many factors Hoover could not control. The British were not pleased with Hoover's mandate that they buy up excess American pork and acquire a taste for it. The army demanded more shipping space for combat troops, limiting Hoover's capacity to export. The winter of 1918 was among the worst in American history, creating massive delays in rail and shipping traffic. And, curiously, the end of the war arrived sooner than Hoover had planned, causing a glut in food supplies. That the war ended when it did may have been a political blessing in disguise for Hoover, for his magnificent balancing act was beginning to crumble. Congress and industry could be caged only so long. But in his eighteen-month tenure the food czar had essentially done what he set out to do: feed the western world without interruption and speculation.
One immediate question is: how did Hoover get away with this? One gets the sense that a lot of government officials rolled over and played dead during Hoover's heyday, such as the Secretary of Agriculture, David Houston. One answer may be that while most officers of government were at least dimly aware of the magnitude of the crisis, they realized that to do what was necessary-usurp commercial powers to an unprecedented degree-would involve the political suicide of the perpetrator, and they were happy to oblige Hoover as he took the fall. Interestingly, Hoover never seemed to have considered his tenure a political risk. On the contrary, he evidently saw his government service as his emergence onto the American political stage, and of course events would show this to be fortuitous. In its description of this tenure of Hoover's public service, the book serves up questions for the volumes to follow: How did Hoover regain his credibility in with Republicans, and major business interests in particular, such that he could be nominated for the presidency in 1928? Another: how did Hoover's wartime experience impact his presidential management of the Depression? And finally, would America of the third millennium accept a "temporary czar" in a national crisis such as the unleashing of weapons of mass destruction? Put another way, is Hoover simply a historical anomaly or a paradigm for future crises?
See all 1 customer reviews...
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash PDF
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash EPub
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash Doc
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash iBooks
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash rtf
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash Mobipocket
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash Kindle
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash PDF
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash PDF
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash PDF
The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918, by George H. Nash PDF
