Voices Of Protest: The Great Depression By Alan Brinkley

Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin & The Great Depression by Alan Brinkley is all about the journey of two men during the Great Depression and the overwhelming rise to success. Huey P. Long was a Senator from the swamp state, Louisiana; while Charles E. Coughlin was a Catholic priest from Detroit. The two were from vastly different parts of the country, but they both became two of the most successful leaders in politics during this time period. In all honesty, I did not enjoy this book. But Brinkley did teach me things I did not know before reading it, therefore, I would recommend it to other readers. The opening chapter, The Kingfish Ascending grabbed my attention almost immediately. The second paragraph states “Several years …show more content…
Coughlin started as a small suburban preacher, who was concerned for his church and its’ people so he took up a position on the radio. I thought this was so cool. One of the things that stuck out to me the most about his radio sermons though was found on page 63, “he created an explanation of the crisis that way in many ways illogical and occasionally dangerously distorted. But it was, nevertheless, a message that reflected some of the oldest and deepest impulses of the American people, a message that raised fundamental questions about the structure of the nation’s economic life.” It was quite contradictory in a sense, Brinkley said that it was distorted, yet it exemplified the American impulses so well. That made me question how messed up our society really is at this point in time. Reading about Coughlin and his early life was one of the most interesting parts of this book for me. “Growing up as an only child and dealing constantly with his mother’s protectiveness may have accounted for two important threads of Coughlin’s personality. There was the brashness, the assertiveness, the almost boastful manliness, an implicit rebuff, perhaps, to his mother’s efforts to pamper and refine him. But there was at the same time an expectation of constant solicitude and approval.” (P.85) This was very interesting to me. Although, it doesn’t surprise me that his personal family life ended up affecting his political life. Every part of the writings by Brinkley that concern Charles Coughlin are way more intriguing than any of the information provided on Long. Brinkley writes that most of his radio sermons stayed on the lines of religion and Biblical based themes, but there was one sermon that was very different. It should also be noted that this sermon did not survive in regards to what was actually said. But from what we have gathered from