What a shame: The New Yorker gave Amity Shlaes’s just-out book about the Depression, The Forgotten Man (HarperCollins, June), to regular reviewer John Updike. Great for name recognition, says economist and prolific blogger Brad DeLong, but too bad Updike doesn’t seem to know much about the Depression.

“A competent editor would have chosen a reviewer who knew economics and history,” DeLong starts out. Among the topics he goes on to fault Updike for not understanding: the gold standard, deflation, and FDR and the New Deal. That’s for a start. As to an evaluation of the New Deal, DeLong offers his own take – and lots of references to other economists and historians.