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Podcast: Plain English with Derek Thompson
Episode: Plain History: The Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the Great Depression
Description: The 1920s and the 2020s share a special kinship. One hundred years ago, the U.S. was grappling with a mix of growth, technological splendor, and generational anxiety—a familiar cocktail (albeit, from an era where cocktails were illegal). The era’s young people felt uniquely besieged by global forces. “My whole generation is restless," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in This Side of Paradise. “A new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken."