Download or read book The Sphinx written by Nicholas Wapshott and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2014-11-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before Pearl Harbor, before the Nazi invasion of Poland, America teetered between the desire for isolation and the threat of world war. May 1938. Franklin Delano Roosevelt—recently reelected to a second term as president—sat in the Oval Office and contemplated two possibilities: the rule of fascism overseas, and a third term. With Hitler's reach extending into Austria, and with the atrocities of World War I still fresh in the American memory, Roosevelt faced the question that would prove one of the most defining in American history: whether to once again go to war in Europe. In The Sphinx, Nicholas Wapshott recounts how an ambitious and resilient Roosevelt—nicknamed "the Sphinx" for his cunning, cryptic rapport with the press—devised and doggedly pursued a strategy to sway the American people to abandon isolationism and take up the mantle of the world's most powerful nation. Chief among Roosevelt’s antagonists was his friend Joseph P. Kennedy, a stock market magnate and the patriarch of what was to become one of the nation's most storied dynasties. Kennedy's financial, political, and personal interests aligned him with a war-weary American public, and he counted among his isolationist allies no less than Walt Disney, William Randolph Hearst, and Henry Ford—prominent businessmen who believed America had no business in conflicts across the Atlantic. The ensuing battle—waged with fiery rhetoric, agile diplomacy, media sabotage, and petty political antics—would land US troops in Europe within three years, secure Roosevelt's legacy, and set a standard for American military strategy for years to come. With millions of lives—and a future paradigm of foreign intervention—hanging in the balance, The Sphinx captures a political giant at the height of his powers and an American identity crisis that continues to this day.

Download or read book The Sphinx Franklin Roosevelt the Isolationists and the Road to World War II written by Nicholas Wapshott and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before Pearl Harbor, before the Nazi invasion of Poland, America teetered between the desire for isolation and the threat of world war. May 1938. Franklin Delano Roosevelt—recently reelected to a second term as president—sat in the Oval Office and contemplated two possibilities: the rule of fascism overseas, and a third term. With Hitler's reach extending into Austria, and with the atrocities of World War I still fresh in the American memory, Roosevelt faced the question that would prove one of the most defining in American history: whether to once again go to war in Europe. In The Sphinx, Nicholas Wapshott recounts how an ambitious and resilient Roosevelt—nicknamed "the Sphinx" for his cunning, cryptic rapport with the press—devised and doggedly pursued a strategy to sway the American people to abandon isolationism and take up the mantle of the world's most powerful nation. Chief among Roosevelt’s antagonists was his friend Joseph P. Kennedy, a stock market magnate and the patriarch of what was to become one of the nation's most storied dynasties. Kennedy's financial, political, and personal interests aligned him with a war-weary American public, and he counted among his isolationist allies no less than Walt Disney, William Randolph Hearst, and Henry Ford—prominent businessmen who believed America had no business in conflicts across the Atlantic. The ensuing battle—waged with fiery rhetoric, agile diplomacy, media sabotage, and petty political antics—would land US troops in Europe within three years, secure Roosevelt's legacy, and set a standard for American military strategy for years to come. With millions of lives—and a future paradigm of foreign intervention—hanging in the balance, The Sphinx captures a political giant at the height of his powers and an American identity crisis that continues to this day.

Download or read book American Isolationism Between the World Wars written by Kenneth D. Rose and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-04-25 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Isolationism Between the World Wars: The Search for a Nation's Identity examines the theory of isolationism in America between the world wars, arguing that it is an ideal that has dominated the Republic since its founding. During the interwar period, isolationists could be found among Republicans and Democrats, Catholics and Protestants, pacifists and militarists, rich and poor. While the dominant historical assessment of isolationism — that it was "provincial" and "short-sighted" — will be examined, this book argues that American isolationism between 1919 and the mid-1930s was a rational foreign policy simply because the European reversion back to politics as usual insured that the continent would remain unstable. Drawing on a wide range of newspaper and journal articles, biographies, congressional hearings, personal papers, and numerous secondary sources, Kenneth D. Rose suggests the time has come for a paradigm shift in how American isolationism is viewed. The text also offers a reflection on isolationism since the end of World War II, particularly the nature of isolationism during the Trump era. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of U.S. Foreign Relations and twentieth-century American history.

Download or read book The Politics of War Powers written by Sarah Burns and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Constitution of the United States divides war powers between the executive and legislative branches to guard against ill-advised or unnecessary military action. This division of powers compels both branches to hold each other accountable and work in tandem. And yet, since the Cold War, congressional ambition has waned on this front. Even when Congress does provide initial authorization for larger operations, they do not provide strict parameters or clear end dates. As a result, one president after another has initiated and carried out poorly developed and poorly executed military policy. The Politics of War Powers offers a measured, deeply informed look at how the American constitutional system broke down, how it impacts decision-making today, and how we might find our way out of this unhealthy power division. Sarah Burns starts with a nuanced account of the theoretical and historical development of war powers in the United States. Where discussions of presidential power often lean on the concept of the Lockean Prerogative, Burns locates a more constructive source in Montesquieu. Unlike Locke, Montesquieu combines universal normative prescriptions with an emphasis on tailoring the structure to the unique needs of a society. In doing so, the separation of powers can be customized while maintaining the moderation needed to create a healthy institutional balance. He demonstrates the importance of forcing the branches into dialogue, putting them, as he says, “in a position to resist” each other. Burns’s conclusion—after tracing changes through Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration, the Cold War, and the War on Terror—is that presidents now command a dangerous degree of unilateral power. Burns’s work ranges across Montesquieu’s theory, the debate over the creation of the Constitution, historical precedent, and the current crisis. Through her analysis, both a fuller picture of the alterations to the constitutional system and ideas on how to address the resulting imbalance of power emerge.

Download or read book Race and Ethnicity in America 4 volumes written by Russell M. Lawson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-10-11 with total page 1972 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Divided into four volumes, Race and Ethnicity in America provides a complete overview of the history of racial and ethnic relations in America, from pre-contact to the present. The five hundred years since Europeans made contact with the indigenous peoples of America have been dominated by racial and ethnic tensions. During the colonial period, from 1500 to 1776, slavery and servitude of whites, blacks, and Indians formed the foundation for race and ethnic relations. After the American Revolution, slavery, labor inequalities, and immigration led to racial and ethnic tensions; after the Civil War, labor inequalities, immigration, and the fight for civil rights dominated America's racial and ethnic experience. From the 1960s to the present, the unfulfilled promise of civil rights for all ethnic and racial groups in America has been the most important sociopolitical issue in America. Race and Ethnicity in America tells this story of the fight for equality in America. The first volume spans pre-contact to the American Revolution; the second, the American Revolution to the Civil War; the third, Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement; and the fourth, the Civil Rights Movement to the present. All volumes explore the culture, society, labor, war and politics, and cultural expressions of racial and ethnic groups.

Download or read book Unlikely Heroes written by Derek Leebaert and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Masterful.” —The Guardian "Propulsive." —The Wall Street Journal "Leebaert has done the near impossible—crafted a fresh and challenging portrait of the man and his inner circle.”— Richard Norton Smith, author of An Uncommon Man, former director of the Hoover, Eisenhower, Reagan, and Ford presidential libraries. “A fascinating and absorbing analysis of FDR’s brilliantly chosen team of four courageous and creative men and women.”—Susan Dunn, author of 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—the Election Amid the Storm, Massachusetts Professor of Humanities, Williams College. Drawing on new materials, Unlikely Heroes constructs an entirely fresh understanding of FDR and his presidency by spotlighting the powerful, equally wounded figures whom he raised up to confront the Depression, then to beat the Axis. Only four people served at the top echelon of President Franklin Roosevelt's Administration from the frightening early months of spring 1933 until he died in April 1945, on the cusp of wartime victory. These lieutenants composed the tough, constrictive, long-term core of government. They built the great institutions being raised against the Depression, implemented the New Deal, and they were pivotal to winning World War II. Yet, in their different ways, each was as wounded as the polio-stricken titan. Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, and Henry Wallace were also strange outsiders. Up to 1933, none would ever have been considered for high office. Still, each became a world figure, and it would have been exceedingly difficult for Roosevelt to transform the nation without them. By examining the lives of these four, a very different picture emerges of how Americans saved their democracy and rescued civilization overseas. Many of the dangers that they all overcame are troublingly like those America faces today.

Download or read book Winston Churchill and the Art of Leadership written by William Nester and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many indeed, are the biographies of Winston Churchill, one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. But what was that influence and how did he use it in the furtherance of his and his country’s ambitions? For the first time, Professor William Nestor has delved into the life and actions of Churchill to examine just how skillfully he manipulated events to placed him in positions of power. His thirst for power stirred political controversy wherever he intruded. Those who had to deal directly with him either loved or hated him. His enemies condemned him for being an egoist, publicity hound, double-dealer, and Machiavellian, accusations that his friends and even he himself could not deny. He could only serve Britain as a statesman and a reformer because he was a wily politician who won sixteen of twenty-one elections that he contested between 1899 and 1955. The House of Commons was Churchill's political temple where he exalted in the speeches and harangues on the floor and the backroom horse-trading and camaraderie. Most of his life he was a Cassandra, warning against the threats of Communism, Nazism, and nuclear Armageddon. With his ability to think beyond mental boxes and connect far-flung dots, he clearly foretold events to which virtually everyone else was oblivious. Yet he was certainly not always right and was at times spectacularly wrong. This is the first book that explores how Churchill understood and asserted the art of power, mostly through hundreds of his own insights expressed through his speeches and writings.

Download or read book Why the New Deal Matters written by Eric Rauchway and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at how the New Deal fundamentally changed American life, and why it remains relevant today "The New Deal was America's response to the gravest economic and social crisis of the twentieth century. It now serves as a source of inspiration for how we should respond to the gravest crisis of the twenty-first. There's no more fluent and informative a guide to that history than Eric Rauchway, and no one better to describe the capacity of government to transform America for the better."—Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley The greatest peaceable expression of common purpose in U.S. history, the New Deal altered Americans' relationship with politics, economics, and one another in ways that continue to resonate today. No matter where you look in America, there is likely a building or bridge built through New Deal initiatives. If you have taken out a small business loan from the federal government or drawn unemployment, you can thank the New Deal. While certainly flawed in many aspects—the New Deal was implemented by a Democratic Party still beholden to the segregationist South for its majorities in Congress and the Electoral College—the New Deal was instated at a time of mass unemployment and the rise of fascistic government models and functioned as a bulwark of American democracy in hard times. This book looks at how this legacy, both for good and ill, informs the current debates around governmental responses to crises.

Download or read book V Is For Victory written by Craig Nelson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-05-23 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling historian Craig Nelson reveals how FDR confronted an American public disinterested in going to war in Europe, skillfully won their support, and pushed government and American industry to build the greatest war machine in history, “the arsenal of democracy” that won World War II. As Nazi Germany began to conquer Europe, America’s military was unprepared, too small, and poorly supplied. The Nazis were supported by robust German factories that created a seemingly endless flow of arms, trucks, tanks, airplanes, and submarines. The United States, emerging from the Great Depression, was skeptical of American involvement in Europe and not ready to wage war. Hardened isolationists predicted disaster if the country went to war. In this fascinating and deeply researched account, Craig Nelson traces how Franklin D. Roosevelt steadily and sometimes secretively put America on a war footing by convincing America’s top industrialists such as Henry Ford Jr. to retool their factories, by diverting the country’s supplies of raw materials to the war effort, and above all by convincing the American people to endure shortages, to work in wartime factories, and to send their sons into harm’s way. Within a few years, the nation’s workers were producing thousands of airplanes and tanks, hundreds of warships and submarines. Under FDR’s resolute leadership, victory at land and sea and air across the globe began at home in America—a powerful and essential narrative largely overlooked in conventional histories of the war but which, in Nelson’s skilled, authoritative hands, becomes an illuminating and important work destined to become an American history classic.

Download or read book Wild Spaces Open Seasons written by Kevin Sharp and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2016-10-26 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wild Spaces, Open Seasons traces the theme of hunting and fishing in American art from the early nineteenth century through World War II. Describing a remarkable group of American paintings and sculpture, the contributors reveal the pervasiveness of the subjects and the fascinating contexts from which they emerged. In one important example after another, the authors demonstrate that representations of hunting and fishing did more than illustrate subsistence activities or diverting pastimes. The portrayal of American hunters and fishers also spoke to American ambitions and priorities. In his introduction, noted outdoorsman and author Stephen J. Bodio surveys the book’s major artists, who range from society painters to naturalists and modernists. Margaret C. Adler then explores how hunting and fishing imagery in American art reflects traditional myths, some rooted in classicism, others in the American appetite for tall tales. Kory W. Rogers, in his discussion of works that valorize the dangers hunters faced pursuing their prey, shows how American artists constructed new rituals at a time when the United States was rapidly transforming from a frontier society into a modern urban nation. Shirley Reece-Hughes looks at depictions of families, pairs, and parties of hunters and fishers and how social bonding reinvigorated American society at a time of social, political, and cultural change. Finally, Adam M. Thomas considers themes of exploration and hunting as integral to conveying the individualism that was a staple of westward expansion. In their depictions of the hunt or the catch, American artists connected a dynamic and developing nation to its past and its future. Through the examination of major works of art, Wild Spaces, Open Seasons brings to light an often-overlooked theme in American painting and sculpture.

Download or read book The Idealist written by Samuel Zipp and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize “The Idealist is a powerful book, gorgeously written and consistently insightful. Samuel Zipp uses the 1942 world tour of Wendell Willkie to examine American attitudes toward internationalism, decolonization, and race in the febrile atmosphere of the world’s first truly global conflict.” —Andrew Preston, author of Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith A dramatic account of the plane journey undertaken by businessman-turned-maverick-internationalist Wendell Willkie to rally US allies to the war effort. Willkie’s tour of a planet shrunk by aviation and war inspired him to challenge Americans to fight a rising tide of nationalism at home. In August 1942, as the threat of fascism swept the world, a charismatic Republican presidential contender boarded the Gulliver at Mitchel Airfield for a seven-week journey around the world. Wendell Willkie covered 31,000 miles as President Roosevelt’s unofficial envoy. He visited the battlefront in North Africa with General Montgomery, debated a frosty de Gaulle in Beirut, almost failed to deliver a letter to Stalin in Moscow, and allowed himself to be seduced by Chiang Kai-shek in China. Through it all, he was struck by the insistent demands for freedom across the world. In One World, the runaway bestseller he published on his return, Willkie challenged Americans to resist the “America first” doctrine espoused by the war’s domestic opponents and warned of the dangers of “narrow nationalism.” He urged his fellow citizens to end colonialism and embrace “equality of opportunity for every race and every nation.” With his radio broadcasts regularly drawing over 30 million listeners, he was able to reach Americans directly in their homes. His call for a more equitable and interconnected world electrified the nation, until he was silenced abruptly by a series of heart attacks in 1944. With his death, America lost its most effective globalist, the man FDR referred to as “Private Citizen Number One.” At a time when “America first” is again a rallying cry, Willkie’s message is at once chastening and inspiring, a reminder that “one world” is more than a matter of supply chains and economics, and that racism and nationalism have long been intertwined.

Download or read book The Twenty Second Amendment and the Limits of Presidential Tenure written by Martin B. Gold and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-11-27 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly a century and a half, Americans lived by a powerful tradition in which no President served more than two terms. Then came Franklin Delano Roosevelt, restricted by custom but not by law, who won a third term in 1940 and a fourth in 1944. Believing that the broken norm would be breached again, the Republican-controlled eightieth Congress acted to restore it, passing a constitutional change in 1947 to formalize an absolute limit on presidential tenure. Ratified in 1951, the Twenty-second Amendment created a lame-duck out of every two-term incumbent since Truman and has had an enormous effect on the institution of the Presidency, public policy, and national politics. Critics believe the Amendment diminishes the presidential office; however, Martin B. Gold contends it serves to maintain checks and balances central to the American Constitution while examining Presidents and term limits, from the spirited debates in the Constitution Convention, the role of custom in an unwritten Constitution, and the Twenty-second Amendment itself.

Download or read book Britain America and the Special Relationship Since 1941 written by B. J. C McKercher and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-06-07 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the Anglo-American strategic and military relationship that developed during the Second World War and continued until recent years, starting with the origins of the ‘Special Relationship’ and its progression from uneasy coexistence in the eighteenth century to collaboration at the start of the Second World War. McKercher explores the continued evolution of this partnership during the conflicts that followed, concluding by looking at the developments in British and American politics during the past two decades. This is an essential introductory resource for students of the political history and foreign policies of Britain and the United States in the twentieth century.

Download or read book The Money Makers written by Eric Rauchway and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortly after arriving in the White House in early 1933, Franklin Roosevelt took the United States off the gold standard. His opponents thought his decision unwise at best, and ruinous at worst. But they could not have been more wrong. With The Money Makers, Eric Rauchway tells the absorbing story of how FDR and his advisors pulled the levers of monetary policy to save the domestic economy and propel the United States to unprecedented prosperity and superpower status. Drawing on the ideas of the brilliant British economist John Maynard Keynes, among others, Roosevelt created the conditions for recovery from the Great Depression, deploying economic policy to fight the biggest threat then facing the nation: deflation. Throughout the 1930s, he also had one eye on the increasingly dire situation in Europe. In order to defeat Hitler, Roosevelt turned again to monetary policy, sending dollars abroad to prop up the faltering economies of Britain and, beginning in 1941, the Soviet Union. FDR's fight against economic depression and his fight against fascism were indistinguishable. As Rauchway writes, "Roosevelt wanted to ensure more than business recovery; he wanted to restore American economic and moral strength so the US could defend civilization itself." The economic and military alliance he created proved unbeatable-and also provided the foundation for decades of postwar prosperity. Indeed, Rauchway argues that Roosevelt's greatest legacy was his monetary policy. Even today, the "Roosevelt dollar" remains both the symbol and the catalyst of America's vast economic power. The Money Makers restores the Roosevelt dollar to its central place in our understanding of FDR, the New Deal, and the economic history of twentieth-century America. We forget this history at our own peril. In revealing the roots of our postwar prosperity, Rauchway shows how we can recapture the abundance of that period in our own.

Download or read book From Isolation to War written by Justus D. Doenecke and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-09-28 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new edition of this popular and widely-used American history textbook has been thoroughly updated to include a wealth of new scholarship on American diplomacy in the decade leading up to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Features new material on the Washington Conference of 1921-22, early American diplomacy in the Manchurian crisis, the Panay incident, Russia’s invasion of Finland, the destroyer-bases deal, and much more Pays particular attention to Roosevelt's policies towards Jewish refugees, the battle between domestic groups like the America First Committee and Fight for Freedom, and the Welles mission of 1940 Includes concise biographical sketches of major world leaders, including Hoover, FDR, Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Tojo Outlines and examines the debates of historians over the wisdom of U.S. policies

Download or read book Americans in a World at War written by Brooke L. Blower and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid narrative of an ill-fated Pan American flight during World War II that captures the dramatic backstories of its passengers and, through them, the impact of Americans' global connections. On February 21, 1943, Pan American Airways' celebrated seaplane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from New York's Marine Air Terminal and island-hopped its way across the Atlantic Ocean. Arriving at Lisbon the following evening, it crashed in the Tagus River, killing twenty-four of its thirty-nine passengers and crew. Americans in a World at War traces the backstories of seven worldly Americans aboard that plane, their personal histories, their politics, and the paths that led them toward war. Combat soldiers made up only a small fraction of the millions of Americans, both in and out of uniform, who scattered across six continents during the Second World War. This book uncovers a surprising history of American noncombatants abroad in the years leading into the twentieth century's most consequential conflict. Long before GIs began storming beaches and liberating towns, Americans had forged extensive political, economic, and personal ties to other parts of the world. These deep and sometimes contradictory engagements, which preceded the bombing of Pearl Harbor, would shape and in turn be transformed by the US war effort. The intriguing biographies of the Yankee Clipper's passengers--among them an Olympic-athlete-turned-export salesman, a Broadway star, a swashbuckling pilot, and two entrepreneurs accused of trading with the enemy--upend conventional American narratives about World War II. As their travels take them from Ukraine, France, Spain, Panama, Cuba, and the Philippines to Java, India, Australia, Britain, Egypt, the Soviet Union, and the Belgian Congo, among other hot spots, their movements defy simple boundaries between home front and war front. Americans in a World at War offers fresh perspectives on a transformative period of US history and global connections during the "American Century."

Download or read book Fragile Victory written by James E. Cronin and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the history of liberal order and democratic politics since the 1930s explains ongoing threats to democracy and international order The liberal democratic order that seemed so stable in North America and Western Europe has become precarious. James E. Cronin argues that liberalism has never been secure and that since the 1930s the international order has had to be crafted, redeployed, and extended in response to both victories and setbacks. Beginning with the German and Japanese efforts in the 1930s to establish a system based on empire, race, economic protectionism, and militant nationalism, Cronin shows how the postwar system, established out of a revulsion at the ideas of fascism, repeatedly reinvented itself in the face of the Cold War, anticolonial insurgencies, the economic and political crises of the 1970s, the collapse of communism, the rise of globalization, and the financial crisis of 2008. Cronin emphasizes the links between internal and external politics in sustaining liberal order internationally and the domestic origins and correlates of present difficulties. Fragile Victory provides the context necessary to understand such diverse challenges as the triumph of Brexit, the election of Trump, the rise of populism, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.