"A contemporary history," wrote Allen in his preface, "is bound to be anything but definitive," but he hoped its audience would be "interested and perhaps amused to find events and circumstances which they remember well-which seem to have happened Only Yesterday-woven into a pattern which at least masquerades as history." 1 So successful was Allen in blending recent history, journalistic flair, social commentary, and personal reflection into a compelling retrospective that Only Yesterday became an immediate bestseller and has remained in print to this day. Appearing only two years after the 1929 crash, Allen's "informal history" offered its readers a sympathetic yet clear-eyed look at the tumultuous decade from which they had been catapulted by the economic collapse.
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