Nice note from a reder:

Dear Jonah, read the book months ago but am late to the LFB party. Your book gave me useful tools to pry open a couple of heavy-duty books on the mobilization/reconversion of industry 1940-’46. Supposedly profit-mad industries (like cars) turned down offers to open up some civilian production in late ‘44 because they didn’t want to set a precedent for a “guided”, “programmatic”, “rational” process that might continue forever. The New Dealers that ran agencies like the War Production Board were proud of the (allegedly) benign dictatorship they’d been given over allotments, markets and priorities and are still bitter–sixty years later–that a late Forties depression didn’t strike down those liberty-drunk fools who rejected postwar central planning. Writings by the American Lib/Left about this period have the distinctive tone of a jilted, humiliated ex-spouse, and fury over the ‘48 election seems to have permanently sealed the (negative) deal for a lot of progressives.
Why should this be remotely interesting to you? Because LF has turned out to be an excellent multi-purpose flashlight for illuminating arcane-but-important “final” attempts to rewrite history. Thanks!
P.S. My subscription to the Los Angeles Times hangs by a single thread–your column…