Description
Book SynopsisDemonstrates that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s rhetoric, vision, and policies promoted a broadly defined sense of American security over a period of thirty-three years, ultimately helping elevate security to its primacy in US political discourse by the end of his presidency.
Trade ReviewThis pathbreaking book examines the origins of Franklin Roosevelt’s worldview and his deft use of ‘security-laden’ rhetoric to sway the American people. Roosevelt’s focus on eliminating ‘fear’ and ‘insecurity’ became the cornerstone of American foreign policy, shaping the thinking of his successors for well over eighty years. Ira Chernus and Randall Fowler have written an impressive study of breathtaking scope, challenging much of the conventional wisdom surrounding both FDR and the main tenets of the nation’s foreign policy. This is scholarship as it should be—a must-read for all students of presidential rhetoric and of national security policymaking." - Stephen Knott, author of
and Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline into Demagoguery and the Prospects for RenewalTable of Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: None Who Can Make Us Afraid
- Part I
- 1. Domestic Policy, 1912–:1932
- 2. Foreign Policy, 1912–1932
- Part II
- 3. Economic Policy: The New Deal
- 4. Prewar Foreign Policy, 1933–1939
- Part III
- 5. The Debate over Intervention
- 6. Roosevelt's Rhetorical Victory, 1940: Arsenal of Democracy
- 7. Roosevelty’s Rhetorical Victory, 1941: The Four Freedoms
- Part IV
- 8. Administration and Public War Aims
- 9. Roosevelt’s Winning Synthesis
- Conclusion: A Still Unfinished History
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
