First published 2011
Franklin Roosevelt inherited a nation in financial collapse and no proven blueprint for recovery. What began as emergency relief measures transformed into a complete reimagining of federal power that still shapes America today. Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Hiltzik reveals how Roosevelt forged a political machine from his fractured inner circle. The president united fiscal conservative Lewis Douglas with radical agrarian Rexford Tugwell. He balanced curmudgeonly miser Harold Ickes against spendthrift idealist Harry Hopkins. He relied on gentleman farmer Henry Morgenthau and prim social activist Frances Perkins. Through six years of intensive experimentation, this unlikely team rebuilt the country's economic and political foundations. Yet Roosevelt's own character flaws would ultimately doom his creation. Hiltzik dismantles decades of myths to show the New Deal as it truly was: a patchwork of contradictory ideas, borrowing from Republican Herbert Hoover, accommodating conservative goals alongside progressive ones. The book captures both the genius and the chaos of this decisive moment.
Genres: history, 20th-century, political-science, non-fiction, biography-memoir, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: America, United States
Period: Great Depression, New Deal
512 pages · Hardcover · Free Press