Freedom from Fear The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945

Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the Americanpeople: the Great Depression and World War II. This book tells the story of howAmericans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedentedcalamities.The Depression was both a disaster and an opportunity. As David Kennedyvividly demonstrates, the economic crisis of the 1930s was far more than asimple reaction to the alleged excesses of the 1920s. For more than a centurybefore 1929, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated throughrepeated boom and bust cycles, wastefully consuming capital and inflictinguntold misery on city and countryside alike.Freedom From Fear explores how the nation agonized over its role in WorldWar II, how it fought the war, why the United States won, and why theconsequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compellingnarrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painfulchoices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on themillions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears andface battle as best they could.Both comprehensive and colorful, this account of the most convulsive periodin American history, excepting only the Civil War, reveals a period that formedthe crucible in which modern America was formed.The Oxford History of the United StatesThe Atlantic Monthly has praised The Oxford History of the United States as"the most distinguished series in American historical scholarship," a seriesthat "synthesizes a generation's worth of historical inquiry and knowledge intoone literally state-of-the-art book. Who touches these books touches aprofession."Conceived under the general editorship of one of the leading Americanhistorians of our time, C. Vann Woodward, The Oxford History of the UnitedStates blends social, political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and militaryhistory into coherent and vividly written narrative. Previous volumes are RobertMiddlekauff's The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution; James M. McPherson'sBattle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (which won a Pulitzer Prize and was aNew York Times Best Seller); and James T. Patterson's Grand Expectations: TheUnited States 1945-1974 (which won a Bancroft Prize).

David M. Kennedy is Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University. He is the author of Over Here: The First World War and American Society, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, which won a Bancroft Prize. He lives in Stanford, California.