First, I wish to thank NetGalley and Open Road Media for the opportunity to read this digital e-book in exchange for an unbiased, honest review.
A funny thing happened when I requested Frederick Lewis Allen’s book, The Big Change: America Transforms Itself: 1900-1950 , Revised Edition, July, 2016. I thought that I was requesting a work of history, but little did I know that I was actually requesting a history book and a book documenting social change in our society immediately following “The Guilded Years” Era and moving from a highly volatile and constantly changing time period in American History, the years 1900-1950. This was one of those mistakes that I did not regret.
Lewis, a writer with Harper’s Magazine, originally wrote this book in 1952. Open Road Media re-released this book in July, 2016. This is an extremely interesting book that is extremely viable to understanding today’s society. The years covered in The Big Change: helped bring the United States to its place in the world today. As Lewis states in the appendix of this work:

“The Big Change is primarily a summary, arrangement, analysis, and interpretation of reasonably familiar rather than a journey of historical exploration … “

Thus, Allen writes a great deal about the social changes that occurred during the years 1900-1950, as well as religious, and political changes and how they helped to shape history during these years. This proves to be very interesting as it really makes the reader think at times. For example, Hitler was making a strong charge in the 1930’s. We were experiencing “The Great Depression” after the collaspe of the banking system and the stock market crash of 1929. Prior to this, America had been known as a stalwart of conservatism. The people would own the businesses as they were better qualified to mange them that the government. The people would work themselves out of their woes; everyone would pull their own, rich or poor. Socialism and the idea of the state being involved with and owning businesses and taking care of those who could not take care of themselves was beginning to take a foothold. And, the extremely radical idea of communism was taking a small foothold. We basically have a combination of these ideas - mainly conservatism and socialism.
The Big Change covers a lot of important chapters of American history. We begin with Calvin Coodlidge and then Teddy Roosevelt being president, and moving the country away from when people like J. P. Morgan, Rockerfeller, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie were the power brokers of the country, and the common laborer was badly overworked and extremely underpaid. (Morgan even loaned the United States money once.) We worked through The Great War (World War I), and reaped the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties, whose excesses finally caught up with us, and we had the Dust Bowl, banks failed, and the stock market crashed. The Great Depression followed, and FDR helped us to get out of this by creating work relief and the New Deal. Next, Hitler brought us into World War II and out of the Great Depression. Americans went back to work. The Allies won the war and the soldiers returned home. Records were broken in marriages and babies born. Prosperity had returned, and Americans were eating it up. Russia was bringing on the Cold War. Life was shaping the future and the history indeed looked to be repeating itself.
I am very glad that I read The Big Change as I really enjoy history and this type of book. Allen does a very good job of writing about the years 1900-1950. It was enlightening and a re-learning expeince, having taken a couple of history classes in college. This is not a book that I read all at once. I read it while I was reading others. This book is probably not for everyone, but if one is a fan on history and sociology, he or she will definitely enjoy this book. I give it a 3.5 stars rating.