In "Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR’s 1936 Landslide Victory and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal" historian David Pietrusza provides an original, and authoritative account of an election, a president, and a country at a crossroads.
Boldly steering clear of the pat narrative regarding Franklin Roosevelt’s unprecedented 1936 re-election landslide, Pietrusza weaves a more intricate, ever more surprising tale of a polarized America; of our most complex, calculating, and politically successful president at the top of his Machiavellian game; and how our society, our politics, and our parties fitfully reinvented themselves.
Roosevelt Sweeps Nation provides a vivid portrait of a turbulent Depression-era America, featuring the steamrolled passage of Social Security and the backlash against it; the era’s racism and anti-Semitism; American Socialists and Communists; and a Supreme Court seemingly bent on dismantling the New Deal.