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Historian William Leuchtenburg’s essay “The New Deal and the Analogue of War” explored the intellectual models used to define public problems and policy, in particular the ways in which viewing domestic issues in military terms shaped community action and social welfare during the New Deal of the 1930s. The idea of using military language to understand broader questions and shape public response has been resurrected by the education group Revive the Victory Garden. The program urges small-scale gardening based on the practices used during the First and Second World Wars as a response to global warming and environmental degradation, challenges it equates to war.
This style of rhetoric underscores both the scale of the threat and also the level of community and individual responses needed. The old idea of the victory garden has both symbolic and practical value for the effort: emphasizing a spirit of volunteerism and personal involvement while—in immediate terms—reducing the resources used to grow and transport out-of-season foods.
. Historian Shae Davidson's research interests include public policy and the relationship between culture and civil society. His publications range from articles on industrial history to absurdist poetry.
