The conventional explanation is that Herbert Hoover, President when Wall Street collapsed and during the period when the crisis turned into the Great Depression, was a laissez-faire ideologue who refused to use public money and government power to refloat the economy. As soon as FOR succeeded him, in 1933, and having no such inhibitions about government intervention started to apply state planning, the clouds lifted and the nations got back to work. There is no truth in this mythology, though there were indeed profound differences of the character between the two men. Neither understood the nature of the Depression, or how to cure it. It is likely that the efforts of both merely served to prolong the crisis. -Paul Johnson A History of the American People

When the New Deal was over, capitalism remained intact. The rich still controlled the nation's wealth, as well as its laws, courts, police, newspapers, churches, and colleges. Enough help had been given to enough people to make Roosevelt a hero to millions, but the same system that had brought depression and crisis-the system of waste, of inequality of concern for profit over human need-remained.
-Howard Zinn A Peoples History of the United States

FDR knew nothing about how wealth was created. the legislation he called for was a patchwork of absurdities, sometimes at odds with each other, and sometimes even at odds with themselves. What finally brought the Depression to an end was noether economic legislation nor WWII. Instead, it was the return to normal conditions following the war and the removal of the uncertainty that had haunted business during the FDR years. Prosperity would have returned much sooner had it not been for the destructive and foolish policies of Hoover and Roosevelt.
-Thomas Woods The Politically Incorrect Guide to American Hostory

1. Johnson is a conservative historian, Zinn is a very liberal historian, and Woods is a libertarian history; what about the depression and the new deal do these three very different historians agree?
2. How do these three quotes go against the conventional wisdom of what ended the Great Depression?
3. According to Woods, what ended the Great Depression?
4. According to Zinn, what didnt the Mew Deal change?​