For a REAL history lesson, read The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes.  Ms. Shlaes is a Senior Fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations and writes a syndicated  column for Bloomberg News.  She outlines Hoover's and FDR's failure to understand how the markets work and how bad policies made a bad situation even worse.  I think it's available in paperback now.