In the Time of the Americans [Hardcover]

David Fromkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 1995

Profiling five Americans whose careers shaped the course of history, a political study examines the shared goals and distinct personalities of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, and MacArthur. 35,000 first printing. $45,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Inspired by President Woodrow Wilson's idealistic internationalism, three subsequent U.S. presidents?Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower?steered Americans away from isolationism to support an active, major role for the U.S. on the world stage. Under their leadership, America helped defeat Hitler, waged a Cold War against Soviet tyranny and checked Chinese communist aggression in Korea. Fromkin's dramatic, engaging political, military and diplomatic history yokes FDR, Truman and Ike in a group portrait with George Marshall, architect of America's postwar financial program to reconstruct Western Europe, and General Douglas MacArthur, WWII hero and commander of U.S. and U.N. forces in Korea. In a panoramic canvas peopled by George Kennan, Joseph Kennedy, John Foster Dulles, Felix Frankfurter, William Randolph Hearst and many others, Fromkin (A Peace to End All Peace) argues that America, acting with mixed motives but without imperial designs, opposed Europe's imperialisms, whether British, German, French or Soviet, and played a key role in destroying them. Fromkin is a Boston University professor of international relations, history and law.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The generation born in the 1880s came of age in the cataclysm of World War I, bore the brunt of leading our nation in World War II, and laid the ground rules for the Cold War. Although this generation has passed from the scene, Fromkin (A Peace To End All Peace, Holt, 1989) has created an exceptional collective biography in examining the forces that shaped the thinking and decision-making of that memorable group of men, led by FDR, who in turn shaped the political world in which we live. Similar to Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas's The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (S.&S., 1988) and, more recently, David Mayers's The Ambassadors and America's Soviet Policy (LJ 2/1/95), Fromkin's book ranges widely among his subjects in weaving together a sophisticated survey of our century as we moved from a nation intent on isolationism to one with world leadership responsibilities thrust upon it. This well-written history is highly recommended for all collections.?Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 618 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (April 25, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394589017
• ISBN-13: 978-0394589015
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,621,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening view of America's role in 20th century events, October 7, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: In The Time Of The Americans: FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur-The Generation That Changed America 's Role in the World (Paperback)

This book clarifies one's understanding of the "great events" of the 20th century and the role that America has played. It puts a new focus on what really happened during the eras of WWI, the Versailles peace conference and WWII (and its aftermath). The book is particularly valuable in that it represents an ideal place from which to branch out into specific studies of the "cast of characters" who framed these events. The author provides an outstanding bibliography. After reading this book (obtained from a local library) I felt compelled to purchase it for my personal library. My children and grandchildren MUST read this book!! If the preceeding comments are insufficient to attract a reader of this review, try this: Now more than ever before I understand the roots of the tragic entry and participation of America in Vietnam

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books on 20th Century American History, April 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Time of the Americans (Hardcover)

Frompkin pulls all of the major players together and tells a story that fills in the blanks left out of the history books. He also describes why and how these men came together to end, once and forall, European wars. We can truely thank these men for the past 53 years of European peace. We can thank Frompkin for telling the story.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Captivating Proof that Individuals Help Change the World!, May 26, 2000

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In The Time Of The Americans: FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur-The Generation That Changed America 's Role in the World (Paperback)

This is a wonderfully written book detailing how five exceptional American individuals literally transformed America from a country characterized by isolationism and a narrow, parochial perspective into the major player on the world stage. All five came to age in an America still locked in the self-absorbed issues of the 19th century, yet each grew with the needs of the times to become instruments for monumental change.

The most interesting aspect of this book is the fashion in which the author sets out substantive proof for the "exceptional man" thesis in history. So here we had five such individuals interacting contemporaneously and profoundly changing the world as a result. Of course, this isn't to suggest that they somehow aggressively pounded the world into their chosen image, for nothing is farther from the truth. This was a time when many titans strode the stage, men like Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, Mussolini and Hirohito. Yet the fact that these five succeeded in vanquishing Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito demonstrates the extent of their accomplishment.

Yet these five men successfully confronted the most urgent and manifest challenges of their time, from FDR's New Deal and transformation of the national government into an active instrument for change. It is no accident that three of the five, Eisenhower, Marshall, and MacArthur, were military professionals, each of whom played an unique and indispensable role in defeating the Axis powers. That each then continued to contribute after the end of the hostilities is more proof of their sense of personal responsibility and need to serve the nation in whatever manner they could. each had a sense of time and place, as well as an appreciation for the unique historical circumstances he found himself in, whether it be MacArthur in Asia, who over decades became a kind of American Centurion, or Harry Truman, thrust onto the national and then world stage most unexpectedly.

In a time like ours, when we are surrounded by public pygmies like Clinton, Gore, the Bushes, Newt Gingrich, and those nine comedians over in Supreme Court land striving to be giants, it's instructive to remember that we weren't always hampered by such venal, self-interested, and morally corrupt leaders. Indeed, it is refreshing, hopeful, and perhaps even a bit nolstalgic to remember that America is not necessarily the eternal land of manipulative mental midgets, and that it once was a place whose titans strode and literally saved the world. Read this book and remember.