This book is a spirited defense of Calvin Coolidge from the calumnies of liberal/Democratic historians. Most historians are liberal-progressives in the Democratic fold; most are fond admirers of big government liberalism in general, and Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal in particular. Thus they have mocked the conservative Republicans of the 1920s as throwback reactionaries, do-nothing dunderheads. This is how I learned history from the textbooks and teachers of my youth. Harding was a corrupt lout. Coolidge was a dour, drowsy, do-nothing. Hoover fiddled as America burned in the Depression. All of these caricatures are false: the befevered dreams of narrative makers in the wake of FDR and the New Deal. If government action and government programs are good, like the sainted FDR and his New Deal, then it stands to reason he must have triumphed over the heretical demonry of the limited government people-hating Republican of the 1920s, right?

Coolidge has always stood to take a fair amount of abuse from the professoriat. A man who apparently napped, never joked, and did nothing to help hurting farmers! The perfect villain. He stood by and let the greedy stockjobbers ruin the false economy of the 1920s. (Funny, liberals always call the 1920s a false posterity, because it was followed by the Great Depression, but never call the prosperity of the 1990s false because it was followed by the recession of the early Bush years.... I wonder if it was because Clinton had a D next to his name?)

This simplistic caricature of Coolidge was never right. And Silver, in a modified dissertation, takes on the historians who push this interpretation of events. In chapters entitled "Calvin Coolidge"; "The Boston Police Strike"; "McNary-Haugen"; "The Mellon-Coolidge Tax Cuts"; and "Coolidge Prosperity and the Great Depression" Silver attacks the prevailing wisdom and its interpretation of the 1920s with facts, quotations, figures, explanation, and exegesis. Liberal historian and FDR mythmaker Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. comes in for special abuse. His sloppy methodology and obvious bias cloud his works, which Silver counters with facts and force (the animus is palpable, but not off-putting). Silver's conclusion serves as a sort of guide for how to prevent socio-political judgments from clouding a true and fair account of history.

Can it be done? In the years after this hard-to-find and never popular little volume was published (1982), Sobel wrote his book on Coolidge and Amity Shlaes wrote her grand biography of the man. The Reaganites of the 1980s grew into the Republican Revolution of 1994 and grandfathered the Tea Party activism of the 2010s. In conservative intellectual circles, at least, the standard view on Coolidge (and Harding and the 1920s) has slowly changed. Perhaps in the future, more balanced views on the 1920s (and 1930s) could make it into the history books. Already the textbooks are getting a bit more sympathetic, but the general mantra of "Republican '20s bad, Democratic '30s good" remains.

Indispensable for any Calvin Coolidge bookshelf. Indispensable for any balanced view of the 1920s and any pol who admires limited government conservatism. Slim, with index. No images. Easy enough to read. Good all around. ( )