Roosevelt Revolution

"This book is a permanent history of the first six months of the 'New Deal.' It explains why the events of 1933 deserve to be called a Revolution, and tells how they came about."--Dust jacket back cover.

This book argues that Franklin D. Roosevelt's work—of which the New Deal was a prime example—was rooted in a definitive political ideology tied to the ideals of the Progressive movement and the social gospel of the late 19th century. Roosevelt's New Deal resulted in such dramatic changes within the United States that it merits the label "revolutionary" and ranks with the work of Washington and Lincoln in its influence on the American nation. The New Deal was not simply the response to a severe economic crisis; it was also an expression of FDR's well-developed political ideology stemming from his religious ideas and his experience in the Progressive movement of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Third American Revolution describes the unfolding of his New Deal response to the crisis of the Depression and chronicles the bitter conservative opposition that resisted every step in the Roosevelt revolution. The author's analysis of Roosevelt's political thought is supported by FDR's own words contained in the key documents and various speeches of his political career. This book also documents FDR's recognition of the dangers to democracy from unresponsive government and identifies his specific motivations to provide for the general welfare.

In The Twenty-Year Revolution from Roosevelt to Eisenhower, which was first published in 1954, author Chesly Manly, the United Nations Correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, leaves practically no part of government operation untouched. He covers the advent of the New Deal; the first year of the Eisenhower administration, with revelations of “diplomatic relations with an implacable enemy; subversion of national policies by collectivist legal and economic ‘experts’; willful toleration of communist infiltration into the government; active encouragement of such infiltration into the labor unions”, and wilful toleration of communist infiltration into the government to active encouragement of such infiltration into the labor unions and “reliance upon the Communists for political support”. A gripping read.

An inside glimpse of the first year of FDR's presidency, provided by one of Roosevelt's closest advisors, the economist and historian Rexford Tugwell.