|
|
|
|
|
Books : Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States) |
List Price: $24.95Amazon.com's Price: $16.47 You Save: $8.48 (34%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780195144031
ISBN: 0195144031
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 992
Publication Date: April 19, 2001
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Sales Rank: 6033
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. This book 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 David Kennedy vividly 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.
Freedom From Fear explores how the nation agonized over its role in World War II, how it fought the war, why the United States won, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could.
Both comprehensive and colorful, this account of the most convulsive period in American history, excepting only the Civil War, reveals a period that formed the crucible in which modern America was formed.
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).
Amazon.com Review:
You can think of Freedom from Fear as the academic's version of The Greatest Generation: like Tom Brokaw, Stanford history professor David M. Kennedy focuses on the years of the Great Depression and the Second World War and how the American people coped with those events. But there the similarities end--and, in terms of the differences, one might begin by noting that the historian's account is over twice the size of the journalist's.
Whereas Brokaw made use of extensive interviews, Kennedy relies on published accounts and primary sources, all meticulously footnoted. This academic rigor, however, does not render the book dull--far from it. Certainly the subject matter is interesting enough in its own right, but Kennedy offers attention-grabbing turns of phrase on nearly every page. He also unleashes some convention-shattering theses, such as his revelation that "the most responsible students of the events of 1929 have been unable to demonstrate an appreciable cause-and-effect linkage between the Crash and the Depression" and his subsequent argument that, although it made order out of chaos, the New Deal did not reverse the Depression--that, he says, was the war's doing. All in all, Freedom from Fear compares favorably to its companions in the multivolume Oxford History of the United States in both its comprehensive heft and its vivid readability. --Ron Hogan
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This is a GREAT book, even at its astounding length and girth. ANYONE who is interested in the Great Depression (Great Depression I, maybe?) should read this book. It's entertaining and exciting, with a great writing style that makes it a pleasure to read. Seriously, if you love American history and don't mind taking a while to read about the most important fifteen years of the twentieth century, buy Freedom From Fear.
Rating: -
Freedom From Fear is one of the best books I have read in many years. It is chock full of fascinating facts about the Depression years and World War II. It is well-balanced and well written.
Until I read this book I was never able to make clear connections between the depression, the presidency of FDR, and World War II. Every page brings new information and new insight. It is a pleasure to read.
Rating: -
This is a wonderfully written history of the Depression and WWII. It is especially good on the Depression with multiple new insights into the US (many applicable to the current credit crisis). The WWII section treads on more well known history. It is one of the top 5 history books written (other include "What has God wrought" in the Oxford history series and Tuckmans "Bible and Sword.")
Rating: -
Kennedy vindicates the editors' choice to devote an entire volume of the Oxford History series to the long decade of depression and war: 1929-1945. He demonstrates that the stresses and changes visited on the nation during this time are equally as profound as those experienced in the long decade of the Civil War era. It was during 1929-45 that the nation confronted the need to grow up -- the need to adopt the institutions and mind-set necessary to manage its economy and to accept its role in world affairs.
The operative word for Kennedy is security. All of the contradictions of the New Deal can be reconciled with the observation that the goal was to find economic security and to become a more inclusive society that left no one behind. And in foreign affairs, Americans were made to realize that their domestic security depended on the ability to create a world where goods and ideas travelled freely across open borders.
Kennedy's writing is endearing because he can empathize with his subjects while at the same time can bloodlessly expose their shabby underside. A wonderful and entertaining writer like Stephen Ambrose lost this gift, and his works suffered as a result. To appreciate the good that the United States has accomplished, one must first appreciate its dark side. And Kennedy lays it all out: the callous disregard for the dispossessed, the racism, the narrow insularity and cowardice of American diplomacy between the wars, the willingness ... Read More
Rating: -
I read "Freedom from Fear" to get some idea of what my parents went through and what they talked about. Even though the times were hard in the Depression and in WWII, they seemed to look back on it with nostalgia. Just ask them about Roosevelt and they would almost get misty saying he was just about the greatest person who had ever lived. Sure the Depression and War were hard, but the enemies were definitely bad guys, and there was no gray area to worry about, as in Vietnam and Iraq. Also, the families and society pulled together in a common cause as in no time since.
But this was only part of the picture, and I'm afraid that David M. Kennedy attempts to tell us the whole story, and it was thoroughly unromantic, and even blunt. He has the cold, objective eye of a historian separated emotionally and by years from the events he covers. In my opinion, it is really the way it should be covered, and he did a good job of it.
Roosevelt, for example, gets a mixed grade for his heroic efforts to get the country back on track economically and through the War. For example, he approved the fire-bombing and atomic-bombing of enemy cities for morale-defeating purposes. He also required unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan early in the War, which may have unnecessarily cost hundreds-of-thousands of lives at the end of the War, when Germany and Japan felt obliged to fight to the bitter end (very bitter indeed for atom-bombed Japan). Also, some of the decisions ... Read More
Browse for similar items by category:
|
