Ezra's Bookshelf

The Defining Moment

by Jonathan Alter · 454 pages · ~8.5 hrs

HistoryPolitics & GovernmentBiography & Memoir

Recommended on

buy on bookshop.org →
Jonathan Alter examines Franklin Roosevelt's first hundred days in office, when a new president confronted economic catastrophe and transformed the American government. Roosevelt took office in March 1933 with the banking system collapsing, unemployment at 25 percent, and despair spreading. His inaugural address—'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself'—signaled a different kind of leadership. Alter traces the whirlwind of legislation that followed: the Emergency Banking Act, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the National Industrial Recovery Act, and more. But the book is equally interested in Roosevelt himself: how his struggle with polio shaped his character, how his patrician confidence allowed him to experiment boldly, and how his communication skills—particularly his fireside chats—restored hope. Alter shows Roosevelt improvising solutions, learning from failures, and building a coalition that would dominate American politics for decades. The book is both historical account and implicit argument about what presidential leadership can accomplish in crisis.

For fans of

Reviews