In this second volume in the Hoover Centennial Seminars series, seven scholars reexamine a major segment of Herbert Hoover's public career and in doing so offer fresh perspectives on the political, administrative, and diplomatic history of the 1920s. Drawing upon new materials and new insights, they reconstruct Hoover's transformation of the Commerce secretariat, explore his thinking and action in a variety of policy areas, and explode conventional depictions of Hoover's political conservatism. These essays show a resourceful and creative mind wrestling with the central problems of twentieth-century America and projecting solutions remarkably similar to current proposals for public use of the private sector.

Ellis W. Hawley has been a member of the Department of History at the University of Iowa since 1969. His special scholarly interest has been the history of American economic institutions and business-government relations during the period from 1915 to 1940. Professor Hawley’s publications include The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly, The Great War and the Search for a Modern Order, 1917-1933, and (with others) Herbert Hoover and the Crisis of American Capitalism. He was historical consultant for Public Papers of the Presidents: Herbert Hoover (four volumes) and has published numerous articles, essays, and reviews in scholarly journals.