Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Rebuild Now [Hardcover]

Felix G. Rohatyn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2009

Bold Endeavors is a compelling narrative of ten large and transformative events in American history. It is an absorbing journey through the past as we read about determined national leaders -- Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Eisenhower -- who found the will, steadiness, and political acumen to make decisions that were often unpopular but that proved to be visionary -- decisions that are the building blocks of America's destiny.

Rohatyn begins with the diplomatic intrigues of the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the country; moves to the controversial construction of the Erie Canal, which opened a water route to the West; then continues to Lincoln's resolute support for the transcontinental railroad, Land Grant colleges, and the Homestead Act; documents the strategy -- and ruthless determination -- that built the Panama Canal; details the visionary and pragmatic politics that allowed FDR to bring electricity to rural America and use the Reconstruction Finance Act to help pull the country from the grip of the Depression; captures the foresight of national purpose which led to the G.I. Bill, which propelled the nation forward; and describes the creation of the interstate highway system that modernized America.

Bold Endeavors is an urgent call for present-day action in this time of grave national crisis. "The nation is falling apart -- literally," Rohatyn warns. "America's roads and bridges, schools and hospitals, airports and roadways, ports and dams, water lines and air control systems -- the country's entire infrastructure is rapidly and dangerously deteriorating."

To reverse this catastrophic degeneration and create tens of thousands of new jobs, Rohatyn offers a carefully reasoned and practical solution. Bold and imaginative political leadership must use the power and the resources of the federal government to finance the rebuilding of the nation's infrastructure.

Rohatyn's page-turning case studies are precedents for purposeful, resourceful, and tenacious leadership that is necessary to accomplish both the rebuilding of America and the country's emergence from its present financial crisis. These bold endeavors from the nation's past are instructive, a guide and an inspiration for Americans today. If the nation is to be rebuilt and its infrastructure renewed, if the country is to emerge from the present economic crisis and reclaim its position of unqualified strength and leadership in world affairs, then it must be guided by the vision, determination, and investments that originally helped create a secure and prosperous America.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Rohatyn (former managing director, Lazard Frères & Co.) retells ten major events in U.S. history from a banker's perspective. He aims both to engender an understanding of how important national leadership has been to the development of our country and to sound a call for national investment in renewing our nation's infrastructure. Organized as a series of case studies, the book explores federally funded undertakings such as the Louisiana Purchase and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and describes the circumstances through which each came to pass. Rohatyn nicely summarizes quite complex historical events, some of which (e.g., the GI Bill) make a more compelling case than others (e.g., the Homestead Act) for the unequivocal success of federally supported national development endeavors. Ultimately, Rohatyn proposes the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank to guide federal funds for public works projects (roads, bridges, schools, etc.) to go to the most critical needs, then details how such a bank might improve upon current means of distributing federal funds for such projects. Maps would have been beneficial for some chapters. Recommended for all interested readers in U.S. history or current affairs.—Elizabeth L. Winter, Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Felix Rohatyn, a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, was a managing director at the investment banking firm Lazard Freres & Co. LLC and served as the U.S. ambassador to France. From 1975 to 1993, Mr. Rohatyn was chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation of the State of New York, where he managed the negotiations that enabled New York City to resolve its financial crisis.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1ST edition (February 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416533125
• ISBN-13: 978-1416533122
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #106,121 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A realistic view of America, February 25, 2009

By 

Future Watch Writer (Washington, D.C. Area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Rebuild Now (Hardcover)

I lived through the bankruptcy of New York City. It was a very disturbing experience. At one point garbage was piled high on the streets.

The author of this book helped save New York City. He chaired what was called the Municipal Assistance Corporation ("Big Mac") that forced all parties, including rich bankers, to sacrifice to save New York. It worked.

This book should help bury once and for all the fantasy that "big government" played no role in U.S. history. It details how government intervention again and again shaped U.S. economic policy.

Today, as the author points out, America is literally falling apart as result of a 28 year fantasy that "government was the problem".

Read this book. It's not written by an abstract intellectual. It's written by somebody who actually worked with real people to help one of America's biggest cities recover from a disaster produced by excessive government borrowing. American has had "credit card government" since 1981. Now we face a day of reckoning. This books gives insights on a way out of today's mess.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely and Important!, February 24, 2009

By 

Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" (Phoenix, AZ.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Rebuild Now (Hardcover)

"Bold encounters" tells of ten large and transformative public initiatives in American history, often unpopular at the time, but later proven visionary. Those included are the Louisiana Purchase - doubled the size of the country, the construction of the Erie Canal - opening a water route to the West, Lincoln's strong support for the transcontinental railroad, creation of Land Grant colleges and the Homestead Act, building the Panama Canal, bringing electricity to rural America, the G.I. Bill, and creating the interstate highway system.

The underlying purpose of "Bold Endeavors" is to present an urgent call to rebuild America's infrastructure - roads and bridges, schools and hospitals, ports and dams, water, sewer, and electric lines. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $1.6 trillion will be needed to make our infrastructure dependable and safe. Doing so will also create tens of thousands of new jobs, and reduce the estimated 13,000 deaths attributed to poor highway maintenance.

Rohatyn contends that the ten stories in this book demonstrate that large-scale public investments can work, and with remarkable long-term success.

The federal government is spending $73 billion/year on infrastructure, without a system to objectively prioritize. Rohatyn proposes a National Infrastructure Bank to both issue bonds for their funding and to rank proposals. Interestingly, Rohatyn, a former Wall Street investment bank leader, also believes that these problems are due to investment having been replaced by speculation, and that capitalists are killing capitalism.

Finally, Rohatyn reminisces on his earlier service helping New York City avert bankruptcy - unfortunately, irresponsible leadership since then has brought the problem back through overly generous funding of public employee wages and retirement benefits. Meanwhile, China is investing $200 billion in railroads over 4 years, starting in 2006.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A call for action on infrastructure, February 19, 2009

By 

houttbe (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Rebuild Now (Hardcover)

As a fellow European in the U.S., I share Mr Rohatyn's admiration for the ability of this country to conceive of great projects and to carry them out to the benefit of future generations. I also share his concern for the sorry state of the nation's infrastructure and the urgent need to address its shortcomings.

The puzzling question is why it was so difficult to develop an effective response to this crisis. A number of recent bills before Congress to increase spending on infrastructure have all run into a brick wall. Last year's report by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission attracted little attention and prompted no action. I would have been interested in Mr Rohatyn's analysis of this situation.

The book was probably written before the financial crisis and the reaction of the Obama administration developed. It could not have anticipated the stimulus package that the President signed into law a few days before publication.

The "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" includes $45 billion to spend on transportation infrastructure projects, doubling the federal budget for this purpose. This part of the plan benefited from strong and mostly bipartisan support in Congress.

Hopefully this initiative opens the way to further and more stable funding, in the context of the aviation and highway reauthorizations that will be before Congress later this year.