Eric Rauchway


Eric Rauchway is an American historian and professor at the University of California, Davis. He received his B.A. from Cornell in 1991, and his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1996. Rauchway's scholarship focuses on modern US political, social and economic history, particularly the Progressive Era and the New Deal.

Personal Life

Rauchway is married to historian Kathryn Olmstead, who also teaches at UC Davis. He was previously married to Meg Arnold, with whom he has two children.

Works

He is best known for his 2008 book, The Great Depression and the New Deal, and for his associated commentary on Franklin Roosevelt's economic policies, which emphasized the effectiveness of the New Deal as a program of economic recovery and redistribution of political power. The Great Depression and the New Deal was recommended on NPR's All Things Considered as one of three books to read to understand the Great Recession and featured on C-SPAN Classroom.

Academic books

Rauchway is also the author of a novel, Banana Republican, which continues the story of Tom Buchanan, the primary antagonist in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It was reviewed in The New York Times Book Review Library Journal and Publishers Weekly and other publications
He contributes to The Chronicle of Higher Education's group blog Edge of the American West and also the academic blog Crooked Timber.