For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s [Hardcover]

Alonzo L. Hamby (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 2004

Franklin D. Roosevelt is remembered as one of America's greatest presidents, a leader who guided us through depression and war. Yet for the period prior to World War II, we rarely think of him in a global context, active as an extraordinary international figure during the crisis years that destroyed the old order and catalyzed the changes that created the world we still inhabit. Truly, it was a time of struggle for the survival of democracy.

In For the Survival of Democracy, master historian Alonzo Hamby offers a gripping and revisionist comparative history of this turbulent era, allowing Roosevelt to be viewed in comparison with Stanley Baldwin in Britain, Adolf Hitler in Germany, and a host of supporting yet crucial players. Combining deft character sketches with surprising interpretations of world leaders, Hamby takes us back to a time when nationalism seized the West, when Hitler cloaked his evil in tactical brilliance, and when passive leaders were destined to be swept aside. Franklin Roosevelt emerges as the Depression's most imposing leader. A charismatic personality committed to radical change, a masterful popular communicator, Roosevelt saw no inconsistency between democracy and personal power. Like many great men, he achieved great things but also made great mistakes. Hamby describes in detail his inspiring leadership and the social transformations he wrought, and also examines his failure to achieve economic recovery in the United States long after Germany and Britain accomplished it.

The economic catastrophe of the decade before World War II, coupled with the rise of fascism, contains all the drama and high stakes of a fight for survival, during which FDR proved himself to be an essential warrior. In America, in no small part thanks to Franklin Roosevelt, democracy survived to fight another day, and to prevail. Never before has the decade prior to the war been brought to life so vividly, and never have Franklin Roosevelt's achievements been made so clear.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It may be hard to believe that there's anything new to say about the place of FDR's New Deal in American and world history. But Hamby (Beyond the New Deal, etc.) does so in this sobering account of how well the U.S. managed its affairs during the Great Depression. What makes Hamby's approach fresh is his comparisons among the U.S. and the world's other great economic powers at the time, Great Britain and Germany. In the midst of an international whirlwind, each country went its own, nationalistic way. But as Hamby shows, their independent approaches to a universal crisis yielded benefits that go-it-alone policies now probably can't yield. In fact, while by 1940 both Britain and Germany had recovered from the Depression, the U.S. had not, despite FDR's huge efforts. The cost of recovery to Germany and the world of course was Nazism, war and genocide. Britain's integrity was better spared, and its social programs grew. But the U.S.? Hamby credits FDR with saving American democracy if not its economy, which was saved by the war. The president thus made possible the survival of free government elsewhere. The author's clarity and balance of judgment are marred somewhat with a cascade of facts. But his characterizations of people are always deft and occasionally surprising. He revives the reputation of Britain's Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and even has good things to say of the often reviled Neville Chamberlain. But at the center of this somewhat old-fashioned political and economic history is FDR's leadership. And that's what will draw readers to this solid, authoritative history.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The West tends to view the spread and triumph of representative democracy as almost inevitable. So it is valuable to be reminded how tenuous the survival of democratic institutions seemed as the world faced the onslaughts of the Great Depression and the advance of totalitarian systems in the 1930s. History professor Hamby has chosen to focus on the three economic powerhouses of the 1930s: the U.S., Great Britain, and Germany. He examines how each nation coped with the economic and political obstacles, and his analyses and conclusions are often surprising and provocative. Despite his obvious disdain for fascism, Hamby credits Hitler and some of his cohorts with creativity in responding to various challenges. British leaders Baldwin and Chamberlain are usually portrayed unfavorably, but Hamby views them as rather unfairly maligned. At the center of the story is Roosevelt, whose skill as an inspirational leader and advocate for democratic ideals made him almost indispensable. This is a fine, balanced account that should remind us that democratic political systems must periodically be tested under fire. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; First Edition edition (January 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684843404
• ISBN-13: 978-0684843407
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,893,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Second Rate Compared to Other Books, May 16, 2006

By 

T. Carlsen - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s (Hardcover)

Alonzo Hamby compares the economic performance of America to only Germany and Britain, which is not a fair comparison. Germany and Britian had the best performances of all the world countries affected by the Great Depression. USA did better than many countries, but Hamby does not compare USA to those countries.

There are several other outstanding books that fully compare the economic performance of the United States during the Great Depression to that of many other countries, such as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's "Essays on the Great Depression." A comparison of USA against ALL the other countries, such as France, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, and Britain, shows that USA did fairly well overall and much better than many countries.

GDP in America grew over 50% in FDR's first term. Industrial output in 1937 briefly passed the previous output peak in 1929. Unemployment was cut in half (and fell to around 4-5% if you count the public works jobs not counted in employment figures).

The gold standard was a leading cause of the Great Depression, along with the banking industry collapse. The countries that abandoned the gold standard soonest (like Britain) were the ones that recovered from the depression the soonest, while the counties that stayed on the gold standard the longest (like France) suffered the longest. Yet Hamby does not cover that.

Why does Hamby do that? I am not sure, but I know that the performance of USA is decent when compares to all other countries.

There are many great books on the era. Harvard historian Frank Freidel spent his life researching Roosevelt, so consider his biography "Rendezvous with Destiny." Consider Conrad Black's "Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom," which the Economist Magazine called "a masterpiece." Arthur Schlesinger's award-winning "Age of Roosevelt" is classic. James MacGregor Burns's "Soldier of Freedom" won the Pulitzer Prize. Read Bernanke's "Essays on the Great Depression" for a thorough study of the economics aspects of the Depression. Etc.

16 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hamby is a Subtle Genius, March 2, 2004

By 

Stephen Tootle (Visalia, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s (Hardcover)

It has taken years for me to fully appreciate the subtle genius of Alonzo Hamby. In _For the Survival of Democracy_, Hamby has done it again. He builds his argument slowly, but on a solid foundation. His particular talent is his ability to make sense out of messy historiography and complicated issues. Again, he strikes the perfect balance.
This original and thought-provoking work has managed to integrate the useful criticisms of Roosevelt's conservative critics without taking them too far. It is a useful corrective to the popular perceptions of world politics in the 1930s.
The epilogue alone makes the book worth the purchase price.

25 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bland, February 24, 2004

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[e-mail] (Edmonton, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s (Hardcover)

Over the past few decades Alonzo Hamby has gotten a reputation as one of Americas leading political historians. This book shows this reputation is quite undeserved. The books theme is simple. Hamby looks at the Depression years, mostly in the United States but with comparisons to Nazi Germany and Conservative Britain, and presents what might be described as the Goldilocks thesis. The United States had bold, vigorous and democratic leadership under FDR, but failed to end the depression. Germany ended the depression under leadership that was bold, vigorous and dictatorial, but was, of course, also evil and nihilistic. Great Britain, under the stolid leadership of Baldwin and Chamberlain, gets economic recovery just rightuntil Munich.

Since most histories of the New Deal are far more sympathetic to Roosevelt and since popular opinion of Baldwin and Chamberlain is generally much less sympathetic, this book may appear to be bold and original. Nothing could be further from the truth. It would be more accurately described as Bill Clinton history, since it consists of splitting the difference between Roosevelt and his Republican critics. But it is not based on any substantially new research. This book could have been written three or four decades ago without changing its basic argument. His account of Britain depends on the apologetic approach towards Baldwin and Chamberlain in British historiography that developed through the seventies and eighties. Although Hamby quotes a few more recent works on the Third Reich, he is still inspired most by William Shirers four decade old book, notwithstanding the strong dislike of it by most historians of modern Germany. His discussion of the New Deal period is based on readily available sources like Roosevelts published papers, classics by Leuchtenberg and Dallek, and a number of centrist journals like The New York Times, The Times, The Economist, Walter Lippmann and likeminded people. The result is a book that is derivative at best, and with a shallow, undistinguished style. It is absurd to say that Hindenburg was the George Washington of his country and unthinkingly deferential to say George V had shown himself to be a quintessential Englishman. It is also morally shallow to say Goering was one of the most loathsome Nazis and start off with the fact that he was fat. At times it is unforgivably sloppy: a competent historian should know that Hitler was not born out of wedlock and that Goebbels was not born to humble working-class origins.

Other historians have tried looking at the New Deal in more complex ways, looking at who supported the New Deal and why, the basis of political support and opposition, the relationships between the state and the larger society. One thinks of recent research by authors such as Anthony Badger, Theda Skocpol, Steve Fraser and Colin Gordon. There is nothing like that in this book. Nor is there any sustained economic analysis. Hamby mostly ignores three and a half decades of labour history and simply recapitulates the fear and condescension of moderate journalists at the time. Instead, Fraser focuses on individuals. Every chapter starts off with a little profile of an important player, whether it is Eleanor Roosevelt, Herman Goering, David Lilienthal or Henry Wallace. None of these profiles, it should be said, includes anything that is particularly original or informative or lively. We hear unoriginal accounts of such well-known events as the presidential elections, the bank crisis, the rise of Huey Long and so on, but the result is basically conformist. Whether it is the possibility that FDR was too harsh on businessmen, or societys outrage over Edward VIIIs marriage to a divorced woman, Hamby does little but agree with moderate and respectable opinion.

This reaches its nadir with Hambys amazingly indulgent portrait of pre-1938 appeasement. He portrays opposition to Mussolini as foolish moralism, which helped push him into Hitlers arms. (He also omits Mussolinis use of chemical weapons, rather ironic given the outrage Hambys fellow moderate conservatives have made over Saddam Hussein.) There is similar obtuseness over the Spanish Civil War, where Hamby is inclined to think that Britains malevolent neutrality was a good move. It clearly wasnt: it undercut France, it worsened relations with the Soviet Union, it emboldened Germany and Italy to continue their aggression, it condemned Spain to four decades of cruel dictatorship, it disheartened anti-fascists world-wide and encouraged complacency among appeasers. His indulgent picture of Baldwin and Chamberlain ignore Anthony Adamthwaites views on Ethiopia, and the research of Douglas Little and Enrique Moradiellos on Britains bad faith towards Spain. Overall, much of the discussion of Germany and Britain does not get beyond broad generalizations and stereotypes. The Germans have been dominated for centuries by authoritarian politics. Much of the discussion of Britain consists of journalistic anecdotes of charming plucky little upper-class Brits. What Hamby has done is basically middlebrow journalism, a masters thesis played out to gargantuan length.