When the stability of American life was threatened by the Great Depression, the decisive and visionary policy contained in FDR's New Deal offered America a way forward. In this groundbreaking work, William E. Leuchtenburg traces the evolution of what was both the most controversial and effective socioeconomic initiative ever undertaken in the United States and explains how the social fabric of American life was forever altered. It offers illuminating lessons on the challenges of economic transformation for our time and for all time.