The millions of working class Americans who immediately felt the relief of FDR's new deal policies don't need a "conservative perspective" on the subject. This is a dry and compromised narrative that was written only to supply a contrary viewpoint with little regard to actual fact.

Professor Best produces an array of primary sources to demonstrate that Roosevelt--by his persistent hostility to business--retarded recovery from the Great Depression throughout the 1930s. He uses poll data, quotations from the diaries and correspondence of Morgenthau and others, and newspaper reports to weave together a chilling but well documented account of how FDR retarded recovery and then further blamed businessmen when the economy stalled. Roosevelt, according to the documents, was astonishingly irrational and egotistical in philosophy, but very clever in using federal dollars to gain votes and perpetuate himself in office. This is a five star book.

The title of the book "FDR and the Bonus Marchers, 1933-1935" is, in my opinion, a very misleading title for this book. The book only refers to Franklin Roosevelt a few times during the course of the entire manuscript.

Instead, the book focuses primarily on the hurricane that devastated the Florida Keys and, along with many buildings on the Keys, a large number of World War I veterans who were known as the "bonus marchers" who had been relocated to veterans camps in the Keys.

The book is relatively short (under 150 pages), and spends a considerable amount of time on the hurricane itself and the surviving veterans' recollections of that terrible storm.

In my opinion, the scholarly research is good, but not overly comprehensive; much of the data contained in the book is copies of oral interviews either from the local papers or the veterans' board that investigated the disaster.

If the reader is looking for a history of Franklin Roosevelt and his administration's efforts to work with the bonus marchers, I would recommend a different book. If the reader is looking for a book that tells the tragic story of veterans that suffered through a hurricane, then this is the perfect book for you.