That period is only equalled by the American Revolution and the Civil War. Kennedy delves into a 16 year period that changed the United States in a crucial way. Kennedy needs any assistance from the very capable Herman Wouk - he doesn't. "Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945" answers my questions, from the American perspective: although the characters were fictional, the places and facts were true. I loved both, but I was left wondering "How much is true?" and "What is historically accurate?" An afterword in "War and Remembrance" assured me that the basic history was true, but I wasn't sure how much.
I started exploring WWII on Audible with Herman Wouk's "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance". Freedom from Fear is number IX in The Oxford History of the United States. Please note: The individual volumes of the series have not been published in historical order. In a compelling narrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could.īoth comprehensive and colorful, this account of the most convulsive period in American history, excepting only the Civil War, reveals a period that formed the crucible in which modern America was formed. For more than a century before 1929, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom-and-bust cycles, wastefully consuming capital and inflicting untold misery on city and countryside alike.įreedom from Fear explores how the nation agonized over its role in World War II, how it fought the war, why the United States won, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic.
As David Kennedy vividly demonstrates, the economic crisis of the 1930s was far more than a simple reaction to the alleged excesses of the 1920s. The Depression was both a disaster and an opportunity.
This Pulitzer Prize-winning history tells the story of how Americans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities. Between 19, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II.
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