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.