American Depression Fiction

The Great Depression was not a crisis for capitalism but merely an example of the downturn part of the business cycle, which was generated by government intervention in the economy. Had this book appeared in the 1940s, it might have spared the world much grief. Even so, its appearance in 1963 meant that free-market advocates had their first full-scale treatment of this crucial subject.

A fateful feud simmers between a preacher and his protégé in this luminous retelling of the story of David and Goliath, set on a family farm in the American South and against the backdrop of the Great Migration. Goliath will win hearts with its tenderness and thunderous power. In 1910, at the...