False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933–1947, by former Cato Senior Fellow George Selgin, was ranked among the “10 Best Books of 2025” by The Wall Street Journal this week. Selgin, also the director emeritus of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Georgia, retired this year.

The ten best books of fiction and nonfiction from 2025 were selected by the Journal’s book editors. For False Dawn, the Journal wrote,

“The New Deal, George Selgin suggests, did not work the way most historians claim. This economist’s eye-opening analysis shows that the increased government centralization of the 1930s rarely resulted in on-the-ground stimulus or sustained growth. The war effort did eventually put the economy back on its feet, but equally important was President Roosevelt’s choice, in a time of crisis, to finally work with, rather than vilify, America’s businesses.”