administration, the SBA, through growing, remained a relatively marginal agency, but later it began to grow sharply and by the 1980s was providing around half of the intermediate- and long-term credit that small businesses obtained. Does the intersection of crisis, ideology, and political entrepreneurship explain this growth? What crises explain it? Or did political entrepreneurship change so that a real crisis was no longer required?
These questions may be material for an additional book, as no one can fault Bean for not extending his research into the post-1961 years. Overall he has done us a great service by dissecting the development of federal policies toward small businesses from 1936 to 1961. His book is excellent, and I heartily recommend it.