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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.")
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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 very 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 to let the British and the Russians fight our battles, and the mean spiritedness of the race war with Japan.
What is remarkable is that the nation emerged the better from all of this. The nation's ability after World War II to embrace its responsibilities to rebuild Europe and Japan, to promote European union, to contain the U.S.S.R., and to build a more inclusive society at home is a remarkable contrast to the mind-set of 1929.
Kennedy rehabilitates Hoover's image. He's no hero, of course, but he's not the heartless free market idealogue portrayed in the popular literature. Hoover was a great man and a great progressive, but a poor politician ill suited to lead the country in a time of revolutionary change. Roosevelt comes off as a truly great political leader, but Kennedy pulls no punches in showing the equivocation and the at times bloodless political calculation that characterized Roosevelt.
Kennedy has the judgment and erudition necessary to touch on all the great controversies about this period and to reach conclusions that are convincing. Roosevelt's New Deal, while a profound sucess in establishing the principle of government management of the economy and the twin governing principles of security and inclusiveness, was not sufficiently aggressive. Only with World War II do we finally emerge from the Depression, and Roosevelt perhaps went too far to accommodate big monied interests during World War II. And as for the war with Japan, it was a destructive race war that probably was avoidable. Roosevelt's handling of the European conflict was, on the other hand, exceptionally skillful, and Roosevelt did all that was politically possible in prodding the country from isolationism.
Regarding the atomic bomb, Kennedy makes the point that there was no real debate about using it. It was a weapon that embodied and in some ways perfected the American approach to war as a war of great technology. The decision to use it was made years before when we chose to invest so much in its creation. In a passage that captures Kennedy's skill as a writer, Kennedy contrasts the tremendous industrial might of the superfortress bomber and atomic bomb with the pathetic Japanese effort to build balloon bombs that floated over the Pacific and then dropped into the American Northwest. The Japanese ability to mobilize and commitment to the war could not be equalled by the Americans. But the Americans were not fighting the same war as the Japanese -- they were fighting a war of industry and resources. And so the Japanese were smashed and suffered the very first defeat in their long and glorious history.
And yet, the nation emerges from all of this far better than it was in 1929 and the basic commitments to security at home and abroad were formed. This ability to transcend the dark side of the American character should be a source of great pride. Kennedy's love of country is a far more profound thing that the rah-rah approach of Ambrose or Brokaw.
Until I read this book, I thought that David Potter's "The Impending Crisis", which dealt with the long decade of 1848-1861, was the greatest work of narrative American history. In some ways Kennedy betters Potter because he carries the story through the war (not just the lead-up) and because he incorporates the modern trend of emphasizing the experience of the common man, as opposed to writing history entirely through the eyes of political leaders. Potter, on the other hand, could write like a poet. On balance, I'd say that Kennedy is Potter's equal and has done for 1929-45 what Potter did for 1848-61.
A very long book that is worth every page.
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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 made by Roosevelt and the Allies led to the sectoring of Europe after the War, and initiated the Cold War which lasted until 1989 when the Wall came down.
On the other hand, Roosevelt gets good grades for the way he stimulated the economy. The Depression was NOT caused by the 1929 Crash per Kennedy, but was due in effect to the Industrial Revolution and the massive shift from an agrarian to an industrial society. The priming of the war machine not only won the War but stimulated the economy to such an extent that its effects are still felt today. His innovative so-called Keynesian (essentially governmental action) economic initiatives were keys to this remarkable turn-around. The US economy has roared for the decades since then, though punctuated by recessions from time-to-time to catch its breath.
The War stories were good too. I was surprised that Churchill was so hesitant to support the go-ahead of Overlord, the invasion of Europe that started on D-Day. Stalin was just as bad as you might imagine, though his Russia suffered immensely while waiting impatiently for a second front (Overlord) to finally begin. The Japanese were demonized by strong racial animosity, but lived up to it by their cruel and inhumane treatment of foreign prisoners, especially with the Bataan Death March. I was disturbed that the Allies, as it turned out, could be pretty bad as well (something you don't hear much about). American racial discrimination also prevailed during much of the War with the segregated African Americans left often on the sidelines. On a much different note, I was fascinated by the Battle of the Philippine Sea that was arguably the largest sea battle in history, and was enjoined by over 100,000 sea-faring combatants in hundreds of ships and planes, often miles apart! That was amazing to me! And then there was the saying that Eisenhower's smile was worth 20 divisions: I thought that perfectly captured his contagious spirit of optimism.
Also, the War lifted the country out of a massive country-wide psychological depression in which most folks apparently felt inadequate to cope with the economic trials. You might picture massive protests and uprisings, but surprisingly it was just the opposite: unhappy resignation and everyone feeling like a failure. I certainly didn't hear that part of the story from my family; they probably didn't want to talk about it.
I still think Roosevelt was a great man and a great president! He navigated the country through our most dangerous period since the Civil War. He simply had feet of clay like the rest of us.
What a great story "Freedom from Fear" tells, even though it is not romanticized.
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A fabulous reference for the era of the "Great Depression" and the F. D. Roosevelt administration (1933-1945).
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I've never read a book this long (858 pp) before for pleasure, but I found the Freedom book so illuminating. I am 87 yr old and the book covers my youth, from age 8 to 23--and oh, did I experience personally the depression and the war! It was good to fill in the details and understanding of things where I had fragmentary but profound experiences. I remember farmers dumping milk because they couldn't sell it. I remember FDR's fireside chats and the hope he gave my family. And I remember at night walking around holding my 3 week old colicy baby while listening to the radio reports of D-day landings.
Kennedy has done a superb job and I owe him great thanks. Lu Ann Darling