1940

May 1, 2013
A warmly characterized study of Franklin Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie as they battled for the presidency of 1940 within a yawning national chasm over the war. Dunn (Humanities/Williams Coll.; Roosevelt's Purge: How FDR Fought to Change the Democratic Party, 2010, etc.) explores an array of wildly colorful newsmakers who helped sway the historical tide, from the GOP's Willkie, Thomas Dewey and Robert Taft to Joseph Kennedy and Roosevelt's speechwriter Robert Sherwood. The year would be dominated by the president's decision to run or not to run for re-election to an unprecedented third term, and the country's mood largely depended on whether the Nazi assault would resolve the public to stick with the experienced leader they already knew or risk a change that might, as Alexander Hamilton warned about term limits decades prior in Federalist No. 72, "unhinge and set afloat the already settled train of the administration." Dunn paints a lively portrait of the many currents during the year, which culminated in Roosevelt's victory in November. She looks at the alarming rogue statements of Charles Lindbergh and Joe Kennedy; the GOP's odd choice of Willkie, who was as much of an interventionist as Roosevelt; and Roosevelt's brilliant political maneuvering in choosing the two prominent Republicans Henry Stimson and Frank Knox to his Cabinet and the Broadway playwright Sherwood as his scribe for his patriotic stump speeches. Essentially, all Roosevelt had to do was sit back while the isolationists and pro-German elements like Lindbergh imploded. "In the end," writes Dunn, "Roosevelt and Willkie, the two former antagonists, were almost a team." A sympathetic, entertaining portrayal of two presidential opponents and ultimate colleagues--a nice complement to Lynne Olson's more comprehensive, sweeping Those Angry Days (2013).

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June 15, 2013

The intense battle between isolationists and interventionists and breaking the two-term tradition were the key issues in the 1940 presidential election. Dunn (arts & humanities, Williams Coll.; Roosevelt's Purge) portrays Franklin D. Roosevelt as a master politician whose Machiavellian plan was to keep his competitors in the dark regarding his intentions while giving them ample room to fall on their egos. By contrast, the Republican Party was hopelessly divided: former president Hoover was hoping to be called on again, Robert Taft thought he was entitled to be the challenger, and Thomas Dewey, the New York upstart, sought the nomination, too. Republicans were also divided over isolationism vs. intervention. There was also isolationist Charles Lindbergh to cope with, the boy wonder who proved to be a false hero, while newspaper moguls favoring intervention were able to push the politically untested Wendell Willkie to GOP nomination. FDR captured the Democratic nomination and a third term by showing that he knew more about American democracy than any of the others. VERDICT Though the general story of the 1940 election is known, Dunn updates it with the latest historical data while writing a gripping narrative that both scholars and presidential history buffs will enjoy. They may also like Lynne Olson's Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941.--William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport

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