Roosevelt Sweeps Nation

Roosevelt Sweeps Nation PDF Author: David Pietrusza
Publisher: Diversion Books
ISBN: 1635767784
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 693

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Book Description
Winner of the 2023 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal for US History From the acclaimed author of 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents and 1960: LJB vs JFK vs Nixon—The Epic Campaign that Forged Three Presidencies comes a dazzling panorama of presidential and political personalities, ambitions, plots, and counterplots; racism, anti-Semitism, anti-socialism, and anti-communism, and the landslide referendum on FDR’s New Deal policies in the 1936 presidential election. Award-winning historian David Pietrusza boldly steers clear of the pat narrative regarding Franklin Roosevelt’s unprecedented 1936 re-election landslide, weaving an enormously more intricate, ever more surprising tale of a polarized nation; of America’s most complex, calculating, and politically successful president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the very top of his Machiavellian game; and the unlocking of the puzzle of how our society, our politics, and our parties fitfully reinvented themselves. With in-depth examinations of rabble-rousing Democratic US Senator Huey Long and his assassination before he was able to challenge FDR in ’36; powerful, but widely hated, newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, who blasted FDR’s “Raw Deal”; wildly popular, radical radio commentator Father Coughlin; the steamrolled passage of Social Security and backlash against it; the era’s racism and anti-Semitism; American Socialism and Communism; and a Supreme Court seemingly bent on dismantling the New Deal altogether, Roosevelt Sweeps Nation is a vivid portrait of a dynamic Depression-Era America. Crafting his account from an impressive and unprecedented collection of primary and secondary sources, Pietrusza has produced an engrossing, original, and authoritative account of an election, a president, and a nation at the crossroads. The nation’s stakes were high . . . and the parallels hauntingly akin to today’s dangerously strife-ridden political and culture wars.

Roosevelt Sweeps Nation

Roosevelt Sweeps Nation PDF Author: David Pietrusza
Publisher: Diversion Books
ISBN: 1635767784
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 693

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the 2023 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal for US History From the acclaimed author of 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents and 1960: LJB vs JFK vs Nixon—The Epic Campaign that Forged Three Presidencies comes a dazzling panorama of presidential and political personalities, ambitions, plots, and counterplots; racism, anti-Semitism, anti-socialism, and anti-communism, and the landslide referendum on FDR’s New Deal policies in the 1936 presidential election. Award-winning historian David Pietrusza boldly steers clear of the pat narrative regarding Franklin Roosevelt’s unprecedented 1936 re-election landslide, weaving an enormously more intricate, ever more surprising tale of a polarized nation; of America’s most complex, calculating, and politically successful president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the very top of his Machiavellian game; and the unlocking of the puzzle of how our society, our politics, and our parties fitfully reinvented themselves. With in-depth examinations of rabble-rousing Democratic US Senator Huey Long and his assassination before he was able to challenge FDR in ’36; powerful, but widely hated, newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, who blasted FDR’s “Raw Deal”; wildly popular, radical radio commentator Father Coughlin; the steamrolled passage of Social Security and backlash against it; the era’s racism and anti-Semitism; American Socialism and Communism; and a Supreme Court seemingly bent on dismantling the New Deal altogether, Roosevelt Sweeps Nation is a vivid portrait of a dynamic Depression-Era America. Crafting his account from an impressive and unprecedented collection of primary and secondary sources, Pietrusza has produced an engrossing, original, and authoritative account of an election, a president, and a nation at the crossroads. The nation’s stakes were high . . . and the parallels hauntingly akin to today’s dangerously strife-ridden political and culture wars.

Rendezvous with Destiny

Rendezvous with Destiny PDF Author: Michael Fullilove
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101617829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Book Description
The remarkable untold story of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the five extraordinary men he used to pull America into World War II In the dark days between Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt sent five remarkable men on dramatic and dangerous missions to Europe. The missions were highly unorthodox and they confounded and infuriated diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic. Their importance is little understood to this day. In fact, they were crucial to the course of the Second World War. The envoys were magnificent, unforgettable characters. First off the mark was Sumner Welles, the chilly, patrician under secretary of state, later ruined by his sexual misdemeanors, who was dispatched by FDR on a tour of European capitals in the spring of 1940. In summer of that year, after the fall of France, William “Wild Bill” Donovan—war hero and future spymaster—visited a lonely United Kingdom at the president’s behest to determine whether she could hold out against the Nazis. Donovan’s report helped convince FDR that Britain was worth backing. After he won an unprecedented third term in November 1940, Roosevelt threw a lifeline to the United Kingdom in the form of Lend-Lease and dispatched three men to help secure it. Harry Hopkins, the frail social worker and presidential confidant, was sent to explain Lend-Lease to Winston Churchill. Averell Harriman, a handsome, ambitious railroad heir, served as FDR’s man in London, expediting Lend-Lease aid and romancing Churchill’s daughter-in-law. Roosevelt even put to work his rumpled, charismatic opponent in the 1940 presidential election, Wendell Willkie, whose visit lifted British morale and won wary Americans over to the cause. Finally, in the aftermath of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Hopkins returned to London to confer with Churchill and traveled to Moscow to meet with Joseph Stalin. This final mission gave Roosevelt the confidence to bet on the Soviet Union. The envoys’ missions took them into the middle of the war and exposed them to the leading figures of the age. Taken together, they plot the arc of America’s trans¬formation from a divided and hesitant middle power into the global leader. At the center of everything, of course, was FDR himself, who moved his envoys around the globe with skill and élan. We often think of Harry S. Truman, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, and George F. Kennan as the authors of America’s global primacy in the second half of the twentieth century. But all their achievements were enabled by the earlier work of Roosevelt and his representatives, who took the United States into the war and, by defeating domestic isolationists and foreign enemies, into the world. In these two years, America turned. FDR and his envoys were responsible for the turn. Drawing on vast archival research, Rendezvous with Destiny is narrative history at its most delightful, stirring, and important.

No Ordinary Time

No Ordinary Time PDF Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476750572
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 768

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Book Description
Examines the distinct leadership roles of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during the war years and discusses the dynamics of their marriage.

Final Victory

Final Victory PDF Author: Stanley Weintraub
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN: 0306821133
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
A compelling narrative about FDR, preoccupied with winning the war and his deteriorating health, and the hard-fought presidential election for an unprecedented fourth term

Prejudice and the Old Politics

Prejudice and the Old Politics PDF Author: Allan J. Lichtman
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739101261
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Combining statistical analysis with well-written narrative history, this re-evaluation of the 1928 presidential election gives a vivid portrait of the candidates and the campaign. Lichtman has based his study primarily on a statistical analysis of data from that election and the presidential elections from 1916 to 1940 for all the 2,058 counties outside the former Confederate South. Not relying exclusively on the results of his quantitative analysis, however, Lichtman has also made an exhaustive survey of previous scholarship and contemporary accounts of the 1928 election. He discusses and challenges previous interpretations, especially the ethnocultural and pluralist interpretations and the application of critical election theory to the election. In disputing this theory, which claims that 1928 was a realigning election in which the coalitions were formed that dominated future elections, Lichtman determines that 1928 was an aberration with little impact on later political patterns.

Kennedy and Roosevelt

Kennedy and Roosevelt PDF Author: Michael Beschloss
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504039351
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
The revealing story of Franklin Roosevelt, Joe Kennedy, and a political alliance that changed history, from a New York Times–bestselling author. When Franklin Roosevelt ran for president in 1932, he gained the support of Joseph Kennedy, a little-known businessman with Wall Street connections. Instrumental in Roosevelt’s victory, their partnership began a longstanding alliance between two of America’s most ambitious power brokers. Kennedy worked closely with FDR as the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and later as ambassador to Great Britain. But at the outbreak of World War II, sensing a threat to his family and fortune, Kennedy lobbied against American intervention—putting him in direct conflict with Roosevelt’s intentions. Though he retreated from the spotlight to focus on the political careers of his sons, Kennedy’s relationship with Roosevelt would eventually come full circle in 1960, when Franklin Roosevelt Jr. campaigned for John F. Kennedy’s presidential win. With unprecedented access to Kennedy’s private diaries as well as firsthand interviews with Roosevelt’s family and White House aides, New York Times–bestselling author Michael Beschloss—called “the nation’s leading presidential historian” by Newsweek—presents an insightful study in contrasts. Roosevelt, the scion of a political dynasty, had a genius for the machinery of government; Kennedy, who built his own fortune, was a political outsider determined to build a dynasty of his own. From the author of The Conquerors and Presidential Courage, this is a “fascinating account of the complex, ambiguous relationship of two shrewd, ruthless, power-hungry men” (The New York Times Book Review).

1960

1960 PDF Author: David Pietrusza
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company
ISBN: 1402761147
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 572

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Book Description
It was the election that would ultimately give America "Camelot" and its tragic aftermath, a momentous contest when three giants who each would have a chance to shape the nation battled to win the presidency. Award-winning author David Pietrusza does here for the 1960 presidential race what he did in his previous book, 1920: the Year of the Six Presidents--which Kirkus Reviews selected as one of their Best Books of 2007. Until now, the most authoritative study of the 1960 election was Theodore White''s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the President, 1960. But White, as a trusted insider, didn''t tell all. Here''s the rest of the story, what White could never have known, nor revealed. Finally, it''s all out--including JFK''s poignant comment on why LBJ''s nomination as vice president would be inconsequential: "I''m 43 years old. I''m not going to die in office." Combining an engaging narrative with exhaustive research, Pietrusza chronicles the pivotal election of 1960, in which issues of civil rights and religion (Kennedy was only the second major-party Roman Catholic candidate ever) converged. The volatile primary clash between Senate Majority leader LBJ and the young JFK culminated in an improbable fusion ticket. The historic, legendary Kennedy-Nixon debates followed in its wake. The first presidential televised debates, they forever altered American politics when an exhausted Nixon was unkempt and tentative in their first showdown. With 80 million viewers passing judgment, Nixon''s poll numbers dropped as the charismatic Kennedy''s star rose. Nixon learned his lesson--resting before subsequent debates, reluctantly wearing makeup, and challenging JFK with a more aggressive stance--but the damage was done. There''s no one better to convey the drama of that tumultuous year than Pietrusza. He has 1,000 secrets to spill; a fascinating cast of characters to introduce (including a rogue''s gallery of hangers-on and manipulators); and towering historical events to chronicle. And all of it is built on painstaking research and solid historical scholarship. Pietrusza tracks down every lead to create a winning, engaging, and very readable account. With the 2008 elections approaching, politics will be on everyone''s mind, and 1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon will transform the way readers see modern American history. A sampling of what Theodore White couldn''t chronicle--and David Pietrusza does: · Richard Nixon''s tempestuous Iowa backseat blowup, and his bizarre Election Day road trip · The full story of a sympathetic call from JFK to Coretta Scott King · John Ehrlichman''s spy missions on the Nelson Rockefeller and Democratic camps · The warnings before Election Day that Chicago''s mayor Daley would try to fix the race''s outcome · JFK''s amphetamine-fueled debate performance

Five Days In Philadelphia

Five Days In Philadelphia PDF Author: Charles Peters
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 9781586481124
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
There were four strong contenders when the Republican party met in June of 1940 in Philadelphia to nominate its candidate for president: the crusading young attorney and rising Republican star Tom Dewey, solid members of the Republican establishment Robert Taft and Arthur Vandenberg, and dark horse Wendell Willkie, utilities executive, favorite of the literati and only very recently even a Republican. The leading Republican candidates campaigned as isolationists. The charismatic Willkie, newcomer and upstager, was a liberal interventionist, just as anti-Hitler as FDR. After five days of floor rallies, telegrams from across the country, multiple ballots, rousing speeches, backroom deals, terrifying international news, and, most of all, the relentless chanting of "We Want Willkie" from the gallery, Willkie walked away with the nomination. The story of how this happened — and of how essential his nomination would prove in allowing FDR to save Britain and prepare this country for entry into World War II — is all told in Charles Peters' Five Days in Philadelphia. As Peters shows, these five action-packed days and their improbable outcome were as important as the Battle of Britain in defeating the Nazis.

Too Long Ago

Too Long Ago PDF Author: David Pietrusza
Publisher: Church & Reid Books
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
A sardonic expedition into a small-town ethnic childhood and post-World War II America—and how to survive Rust Belt hard times. At last . . . a memoir finally worthy of comparison to the uproariously funny fiction of the great Jean Shepherd, author and narrator of the beloved A Christmas Story. Only . . . it’s all true. Sometimes . . . sadly true. Award-winning presidential historian and baseball scholar David Pietrusza’s witty and wise tale of growing up in the 1950s and 60s, Too Long Ago is no Leave It to Beaver or Father Knows Best episode. It’s a unique glimpse into an unjustly ignored and forgotten immigrant experience—Eastern European and devoutly pre-Vatican II Catholic. A tale of a tight-knit Polish community, transplanted from tiny, impoverished Hapsburg-ruled villages to a hardscrabble, hardworking, hard-drinking Upstate New York mill town. It’s how the first rust corroded the Rust Belt, sidetracking dreams but not hope. It’s a lively saga of secrets and hard times, of insanity, of manslaughter and murder, of war and postwar, Depression and Recession, racetracks and religions, books and bar rooms, unforgettable personalities and vastly unpronounceable names, of characters and character, of homelessness, of immigration—first to America and then from Rust Belt to Sun Belt—of vices and virtues, and how a sickly, bookwormish boy who loved history and the presidents finally discovered a national pastime and made it his own. Meet Too Long Ago’s mesmerizing cast of characters: Depression-ravaged Felix and Agnes Marek, Corporal Danny Pietrusza and his wartime adventures, Uncle Tony Lenczewski and his raided saloon, brutal serial-killer Lemuel Smith, the high-kicking weather-prophet “Cousin George” Casabonne, carpet heiress and OSS operative Gertie Sanford, caught behind-enemy-lines Mary Zaklukiewicz, and the homeless (but not hopeless) Uncle Leo Zack. Alternately sharp-edged and warm-hearted—sometimes shocking and always surprising—Too Long Ago is a poignant tour-de-force, a no-stopping-for-breath, coming-of-age narrative, akin to cross-breeding Jean Shepherd’s boisterous A Christmas Story with Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Russo’s gritty semi-autobiographical novel Mohawk (set mere miles from Too Long Ago) and presenting the genre-bending result in the mesmerizing form of a decidedly non-WASPY rendition of an epic Spalding Gray monolog.

1940

1940 PDF Author: Susan Dunn
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300195133
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 690

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Book Description
A history of the 1940 U.S. presidential election, when bitterly divided Americans debated the fate of the nation and the world. In 1940, against the explosive backdrop of the Nazi onslaught in Europe, two farsighted candidates for the U.S. presidency—Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, running for an unprecedented third term, and talented Republican businessman Wendell Willkie—found themselves on the defensive against American isolationists and their charismatic spokesman Charles Lindbergh, who called for surrender to Hitler's demands. In this dramatic account of that turbulent and consequential election, historian Susan Dunn brings to life the debates, the high-powered players, and the dawning awareness of the Nazi threat as the presidential candidates engaged in their own battle for supremacy. 1940 not only explores the contest between FDR and Willkie but also examines the key preparations for war that went forward, even in the midst of that divisive election season. The book tells an inspiring story of the triumph of American democracy in a world reeling from fascist barbarism, and it offers a compelling alternative scenario to today’s hyperpartisan political arena, where common ground seems unattainable. “Anyone today who believes that U.S. involvement and the ultimate Allied triumph in World War II was inevitable must read this important history."—Michael Beschloss, New York Times bestselling author of Presidential Courage “Susan Dunn, a prolific and outstanding historian, has crafted a fast-paced, serious, and extraordinarily well-researched book about the events surrounding the pivotal 1940 election. Her main characters…come brilliantly to life. I could hardly put the book down.”—James T. Patterson, author of Bancroft Prize-winning Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974