by Adam Cohen
First published 2009
March 1933. Franklin Delano Roosevelt takes the presidential oath as America crumbles around him. Banks have collapsed by the thousands since the 1929 crash. One in four workers has no job. Farmers revolt in the countryside. Desperate families scavenge garbage dumps for food scraps. The federal government has never faced such devastation or held such limited power to respond. Roosevelt enters the White House without fixed plans to combat the Depression. He operates as a pragmatist rather than an ideologist, surprisingly conservative with money despite his later reputation. He depends on five key advisers to shape his policies, deliberately choosing people with opposing views. Frances Perkins champions social welfare programs while Lewis Douglas demands budget cuts. The other three advisers fall somewhere between these poles. For one hundred feverish days, this inner circle argues, experiments, and creates programs that will define modern America. Cohen reveals how their personal conflicts and competing philosophies drove the most intense period of government activity in American history.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, biography-memoir, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-fiction, political-drama
Setting: America, White House
Period: March 1933
372 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press