Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States) - Hardcover

Kennedy, David M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195038347 ISBN 13: 9780195038347

Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PR, 1999

Synopsis

Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. This text tells the story of how Americans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities. The Depression was both a disaster and an opportunity. As the author demonstrates, the economic crisis of the 1930s was far more than a simple reaction to the alleged excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before 1929, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom and bust cycles, wastefully consuming capital and inflicting untold misery on city and countryside alike. Nor was the fabled prosperity of the 1920s as uniformly shared as legend portrays. Countless Americans, especially if they were farmers, African Americans, or recent immigrants, eked out threadbare lives on the margins of national life. For them, the Depression was but another of the ordeals of fear and insecurity with which they were sadly familiar.

About this title

Review:

"A grand historical synthesis...[T]his is the kind of book prizes are made for."--Chicago Tribune

"This is modern America's story--modern America's most thrilling, most irresistible, and most significant story--and in this massive volume, David M. Kennedy makes it his story in a way that no one has before. Freedom From Fear, the fourth installment of the new Oxford History of the United States to appear, is as much a triumph as its predecessors, providing every indication that the series, once completed, will stand as the most comprehensive and most compelling narrative history of the nation."--Boston Globe

"Rarely does a work of historical synthesis combine such trenchant analysis and elegant writing as does Kennedy's spectacular contribution to the Oxford History of the United States. Kennedy uses a wide canvas to depict all aspects of the American political, social and economic experience from 1929 to 1945. He also provides a stunningly original reinterpretation of the competing forces and interests that combined to shape the New Deal under FDR's direction. The book's final 400 pages admirably demonstrate exactly how the U.S. emerged victorious in WWII....Because of its scope, its insight and its purring narrative engine, Kennedy's book will stand for years to come as the definitive history of the most important decades of the American Century."--Publishers Weekly

"An engrossing narrative of a momentous time. The best one-volume account of the Roosevelt era currently available....Good old-fashioned history."--The New York Times Book Review

"An indispensable account of the two great formative events of 20th century American history--the Great Depression and the second World War."--The Economist

"The book...has my strong approval. As it will have, I cannot doubt, that of the many readers it deserves."--John C. Gilbraith, The Washington Monthly

"An invaluable compendium of the hyperactive period that contains the Great depression and the Second World War."--The Washington Times

"Kennedy's book is the most illuminating, riveting, comprehensive, and graceful one-volume history of this nation's experiences during the Great Depression, New Deal, and WWII published to date....This is social, political, dipolmatic, and military history written magisterially with broad but nuanced strokes across a 16-year span that utterly transformed the lives of Americans and the world....Librarians should order this book for their libraries, faculty members should assign it, and everyone should read it."--CHOICE

"Kennedy's grasp of deep-rooted social problems and his enlightening, analytical style are very much in evidence....[He] brilliantly explores the conflicting nuances of [Roosevelt's] character and program....Kennedy has achieved a judicious balance in his treatment of the Depression and the military operations and diplomatic maneuvers of World War II. His narrative style is in the grand tradition of American historical writing, an unfaltering display of clarity and detail."--Philadephia Inquirer

"No other book so vividly captures the spirit of those 17 years that forever changed America."--Christian Science Monitor

"One of our most broad-gauged American historians brings us that increasing rarity: a big book about a big subject....The Stanford scholar takes on the job of tracing the American people through three of the most important and important and widely written about epochs in the century...and provides us with consistently original and sometimes startling conclusions."--The Washington Post

"A major achievement in objective historical writing that should be a legacy to generations of students seeking authoritative reference material on the period."--Kirkus Reviews

"David Kennedy...is absolutely masterful in this literate and lively history of the American people in the Depression and World War II."--The Waterbury Republican-American

"From its dramatic prelude depicting Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin hearing the news of the end of World War I on November 11, 1918, to its moving climax on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, this panoramic narrative pulses with life, color, incident, and action. We know how it all comes out, yet the fate of the nation seems to hang in the balance as Kennedy captures history's throat-catching contingency."--Jack Beatty, author of The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley and The World According to Peter Drucker

"We expect the best from David Kennedy and he will not disappoint anybody with this competent, complete and literate volume. Covering a time of large and intense change, it is all here. A major and thoroughly fine piece of work."--John Kenneth Galbraith

Freedom from Fear brings together in one place the epic story of how America faced the greatest challenges in its history. At a time when we tend to bemoan our selfish preoccupations, it is bracing to read David Kennedy's moving account of our better selves. This is history the way it ought to be."-- Alan Wolfe, Boston University, author of One Nation After All

"Displaying a literary craft uncommon in survey works, he has woven together narrative, sketches of character, and critical judgment to record and analyze the economic, political, social, and military events of these epic years....This account of the crucial struggles and events of the Depression and war years will lend perspective like few others."--Library Journal

"David Kennedy is one of America's most distinguished historians, and Freedom from Fear is a remarkable achievement: deeply researched, insightful, and beautifully written. Fast-paced, it presents vivid portraits of major actors such as Roosevelt, Churchill, and Hitler, as well as of the hopes and fears of millions of lesser-known people caught up in the tumultuous years of the Great Depression and of World War II."--James T. Patterson, Bancroft Prize-winning author of Grand Expectations

"Excellent text, well-written, focused."--David Lindquist, Indiana University

From the Publisher:

An exciting new book that spans the Great Depression to WWII
IN THE TRADITION OF JAMES McPHERSON’S BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM, JAMES PATTERSON’S GRAND EXPECTATIONS AND ROBERT MIDDLEKAUFF’S THE GLORIOUS CAUSE COMES THE LATEST IN THE AWARD-WINNING OXFORD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES SERIES: DAVID M. KENNEDY’S FREEDOM FROM FEAR.

Here Kennedy Reevaluates the Hoover and Roosevelt Presidencies, The Great Depression, and The New Deal; and Vividly Brings to Life the Major Military and Naval Battles of World War II.

"This is an enormous book, heavy to carry and light and very agreeable to read. David Kennedy is merciless to fact and detail but very kind to the reader... [FREEDOM FROM FEAR] has my strong approval. As it will have, I cannot doubt, that of the many readers it deserves." --John Kenneth Galbraith, The Washington Monthly

"Displaying a literary craft...[Kennedy] has woven together narrative, sketches of character, and critical judgment to record and analyze the economic, political, social, and military events of these epic years... This account of the crucial struggles and events of the Depression and war years will lend perspective like few others." --Library Journal

In FREEDOM FROM FEAR: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, the first comprehensive study that spans the Depression, the New Deal and World War II eras, Bancroft Award-winning historian David M. Kennedy tells the story of three of the most formative events in modern American history. Here Kennedy situates American history in the context of the world historical events developments of the era, including global economic crisis, the rise of Nazism, and Japan’s quest for empire in Asia.

In FREEDOM FROM FEAR, an important addition to the award-winning The Oxford History of the United States series, Kennedy examines in detail America’s greatest economic crisis ever, and sheds light on all contemporary comparisons with that event. It also documents the techniques of presidential leadership developed by Franklin Roosevelt, arguably the most effective and consequential president of the century, and critically discusses the nature of FDR’s great reform legacy. Finally, the book rehearses the momentous debate between 1935 and 1941 about American foreign policy, a debate that ended with American intervention in World War II and the end (for a time, at least) of a century and a half of isolationism – a debate that still echoes in discussions for foreign policy today.

Kennedy addresses major controversies, such as: causes of the Depression, the Hoover presidency, the failures and successes of the New Deal, the role of Depression-era demagogues like Father Charles Coughlin and Senator Huey Long, the rise of organized labor, the origins of Social Security, the "Constitutional Revolution" of 1937, the origins of WWII, the Pearl Harbor attack, the emergence of the American-British-Russian "Grand Alliance," the internment of Japanese-Americans in wartime, the American society in wartime, the Second Front debate, the liabilities of the "unconditional surrender" policy, the nature of the air war waged against Germany and Japan, the development of atomic weapons, and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Ultimately, FREEDOM FROM FEAR tells the story of how Americans endured, and finally prevailed in the face of two back-to-back calamities: The Great Depression and WWII. Kennedy describes the Depression’s impact in vivid detail, and documents the New Deal’s effort to wring lasting social and economic reform out of the Depression crisis. Kennedy also offers a compelling narrative of America’s engagement in World War II, including fresh analyses of how and why America won, and the lasting consequences of American victory. Covering what are the most influential years of the 20th century, FREEDOM FROM FEAR is an exciting narrative of the foundations of modern America.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David M. Kennedy is Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University. He is the author of Over Here: The First World War and American Society, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, which won a Bancroft Prize. He lives in Stanford, California.

ABOUT THE OXFORD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES The Atlantic Monthly has praised The Oxford History of the United States as "the most distinguished series in American historical scholarship," a series that "synthesizes a generation's worth of historical inquiry and knowledge into one literally state-of-the-art book. Who touches these books touches a profession." Conceived under the general editorship of one of the leading American historians of our time, C. Vann Woodward, The Oxford History of the United States blends social, political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military history into coherent and vividly written narrative. Previous volumes are Robert Middlekauff's The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution; James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (which won a Pulitzer Prize and was a New York Times best seller); and James T. Patterson's Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974 (which won a Bancroft Prize). Future volumes include the work of such distinguished historians as Gordon S. Wood, Timothy Breen, James Patterson, and Michael McGerr. FREEDOM FROM FEAR FACT SHEET

In this new book, David Kennedy...

· Rehabilitates the reputation of Herbert Hoover, who is rendered here as in many ways a forerunner of the New Deal. · Examines the "old poor," who were not impoverished by the Depression, but were among the era’s most ravaged victims. These people were 1/3 of the nation who had not prospered in the "affluent" 20s. · Explains the economic causes and consequences of the Great Depression in non-technical language. · Vividly renders the human face of both Depression and War with personal stories. · Analyses the causes of the Great Depression, with important implications for assessing the prospects of a comparable calamity in our own era. · Makes clear the relationship between America’s deepest economic crisis and the most prolific moment of political and social reform in American history. · The first major re-interpretation of the New Deal era in a generation or more. · Shows the importance of immigrant and minority communities to the shaping of the New Deal, and the creation of the fabled "New Deal Coalition" that made the Democrats the dominant political party for nearly two generations after WWII. · Explains the origins of the great New Deal reforms that have shaped American life for the last three generations: The Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act, the Securities Exchange Commission Act, Fair Labor Standards (minimum wage) Act, etc. · Documents the achievement of Franklin Roosevelt in guiding the country through both the Depression and the war. · Presents the "Great Debate" on foreign policy between isolationists and internationalists, from 1935 to the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. · Provides the best account of America in World War II, taking into account homefront, military, and diplomatic aspects of the war, bar none. · Makes clear the grand strategic architecture that informed America’s wars in both Europe and Asia. · Vividly and clearly renders major military and naval engagements, including Pearl Harbor, North Africa, Italy, D-Day, Midway, the Battle for Northwest Europe, the Battle of the Bulge, the air war against Germany, Guadalcanal, Leyre Gulf, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, the Marianas, Okinawa, and the final air assault on Japan. · Explains why and how the United States emerged victorious in World War II, with emphasis on strategy, the homefront economy, and the character, training, and deployment of the 16-million men and women who served in the armed forces. · Argues that Franklin Roosevelt was a shrewd and pragmatic war leader who nevertheless failed to prepare his countrymen for the post-war world they inherited. · Graphically illustrates the transformation of America from a surprisingly backward, still heavily rural nation in the 1920s to the "affluent society" of the post-war era. · Shows how the seeds of the Cold War were planted during WWII.

DON’T BLAME HOOVER!

Public opinion made him the villain of the Great Depression. In fact, as FREEDOM FROM FEAR, a new book from historian David Kennedy, shows the 31st president was a visionary – but a hopelessly inept politician.

By 1932, Herbert Hoover, once the most respected man in America, had become the most loathed, his name forever synonymous with the Great Depression. But, according to Stanford historian David Kennedy, history’s indictment of Hoover is flawed. His failure in the face of the Depression has obscured his achievement as an activist president who pointed the way to the New Deal.

· Hoover’s vigorous response to the stock market crash dazzled most commentators. "No one in his place could have done more," said the New York Times of March 2, 1930. · A Roosevelt advisor conceded: "Practically the who

About this edition

• Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PR
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0195038347
• ISBN 13: 9780195038347
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 990