Filling a gap in presidential history, Roosevelt's Second Act uncovers in complex detail what lay behind Roosevelt's decision to stand for an unprecedented third term, and examines the multiplicity of conflicting forces at work on him.
Countless histories have been written about Franklin Roosevelt's creation of the New Deal and about his leadership during World War II, but none has attempted to bridge these two epochal events. In Roosevelt's Second Act, Richard Moe offers a refreshingly original look 32nd president, arguing that the economic policies of FDR's first two terms and the wartime leadership of his second two are bridged by one pivotal moment: the election of 1940, when his decision of whether to run for an unprecedented third term was driven by the war consuming Europe.
After Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939, Great Britain and France immediately declared war, but it would take many months before serious military action began. Once all-out war started in the spring of 1940, the fate of Britain became inextricably entwined with FDR's agonizing decision of whether to run again, and, for the first time in American history, break the unwritten rules established by George Washington himself. FDR found himself at a place where no other president had been, wanting to help the democracies of Europe to survive without drawing his country into an unwanted war, and with precious little time to do so. For months Roosevelt refused to say whether he would run again or not, but after the Republicans surprisingly nominated the attractive Wendell Willkie in July 1940, FDR believed there was not another Democrat who would continue his policies and who was capable of winning the election. With Hitler on the verge of conquering Europe, the stakes couldn't have been higher -- and the decisions that FDR and the country faced would make 1940 one of the most fateful years in American history.
Offering a critical examination of Roosevelt's actions and motives from September 1939 to the end of 1940 and subjecting them to insightful analysis, Roosevelt's Second Act fills an important gap in presidential history. Through the double narrative of the war in Europe and the 1940 election, Moe offers a brilliant depiction of the duality that was FDR: the bold, perceptive, prescient and moral statesman who set lofty and principled goals, and the sometimes cautious, ambitious, arrogant and manipulative politician in pursuit of them.
[Moe] presents in Roosevelt's Second Act: The Election of 1940 and the Politics of War an intensive and nuanced interpretation of a decisive year in American politics and of the man who presided over it ... Moe's volume is a worthy addition to Oxford University Press's Pivotal Moments in American History series. Roosevelt's Second Act successfully reaches a general audience, and belongs on the shelf near the works of the author's friends Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough.
