New Deal Planning

'Marion Clawson has written a penetrating and fascinating account of the birth, life, and death of the 'most nearly comprehensive planning organization this country has ever known.' He spins a good yarn that captures the spirit of the depression times in the nation's capitol and takes obvious pleasure in dissecting the personalities as well as the issues involved… Few institutional biographies (for this is what Clawson gives us) have been attempted with such depth and breadth of treatment. Indeed few people are qualified to make the attempt, and even fewer have succeeded at the effort…' Journal of the American Planning Association '… Marion Clawson's valuable study of Franklin D. Roosevelt's National Resources Planning Board (NRPB) will interest not only historians of the New Deal but planners (and anti-planners) of the present and future. [He] brings to the study personal memories of New Deal Washington, the experience of a veteran public servant and the detachment of a thoughtful analyst of public administration…his research is extensive and his judgment incisive and discriminating.' Political Science Quarterly