Excerpt from the Introduction: "In this book my primary aim has been to record, once and for all, the essential facts in the life of Wendell Willkie ... Why is it worthwhile to tell the story of Wendell Willkie and get it straight? The answer is that he was the man who, during the last four years of his life, in a decisive period of American history, had a greater influence on the mind of the American people and the policy of the American government than any other person except Franklin Roosevelt. And he exercised this influence despite the fact that he held no office and spoke for no organization - except, briefly, the Republican party. He exercised it by sheer ability and force of character. For one thing, he embodied, as the story will show, the nation's legendary virtues: a carefree superiority to mean and petty motives; an unaffected sympathy for the underdog; reckless courage linked with ebullient energy; eagerness to enter, and unwillingness to quit, a fight in a good cause. His appeal also lay in his almost infallible sense of the dramatic moment, his unerring gift for the symbolic act that clarified the issue for millions of confused by well-meaning fellow Americans. -- Amazon.com.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 49 DAYS In One World Wendell Willkie gives a highly personal account of his meetings with Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek, General Montgomery, General Chennault and other United Nations leaders. He tells of his talks with prime ministers and kings, and with teachers, soldiers, librarians, factory workers, and farmers around the world. He reports a great awakening that is going on among the peoples of the world and his deep conviction that the United Nations must learn to work together now, while they fight, if they hope to live together after the war is over. The publishers believe that One World is a great contribution to the cause of true victory. It is certainly one of the most courageous and outspoken books ever written by a great public figure. “I want to urge every American to read One World. It’s not a book, it’s a searchlight.”—CLIFTON FADIMAN “...he has a seeing eye and an understanding heart....He is a genuine believer in the American way of life....Mr. Willkie’s book becomes a plea that Americans should learn to understand the shrunken world in which they live...”—WALTER LIPPMANN “It is one of the most absorbing books I have read in years, full of humour, shrewd observation, a thousand and one facts you and I never heard but should have. I read it in one gulp.”—WILLIAM L. SHIRER

Traces the crisis period leading up to America's entry in World War II, describing the nation's polarized interventionist and isolation factions as represented by the government, in the press and on the streets, in an account that explores the forefront roles of British-supporter President Roosevelt and isolationist Charles Lindbergh. (This book was previously featured in Forecast.)

In Turning Right in the Sixties, Mary Brennan describes how conservative Americans from a variety of backgrounds, feeling disfranchised and ignored, joined forces to make their voices heard and by 1968 had gained enough power within the party to play the decisive role in determining who would be chosen as the presidential nominee. Building on Barry Goldwater's shortlived bid for the presidential nomination in 1960, Republican conservatives forged new coalitions, aided by an increasingly vocal conservative press, and began to organize at the grassroots level. Their goal was to nominate a conservative in the next election, and eventually they gained enough support to guarantee Goldwater the nomination in 1964. Liberal Republicans, as Brennan demonstrates, failed to stop this swing to the right. Brennan argues that Goldwater's loss to Lyndon Johnson in the general election has obscured the more significant fact that conservatives had wrestled control of the Republican Party from the moderates who had dominated it for years. The lessons conservatives learned in that campaign aided them in 1968 when they were able to force Richard Nixon to cast himself as a conservative candidate, says Brennan, and also laid the groundwork for Ronald Reagan's presidential victory in 1980.

An examination of the emerging rural left, from environmentalists blocking pipeline construction to teachers on strike. In Left Elsewhere, volume editor and lead essayist Elizabeth Catte turns a skeptical eye toward “purple” politicians, such as West Virginia Democrat Richard Ojeda, who are hailed by many as the best hope for U.S. progressives outside the urban coasts. By offering a survey of what the left actually looks like outside major urban centers, Catte shows how an emerging rural left is developing new strategies that do not easily fit into typical ideas of liberals, leftists, and Democratic politics. From environmentalists who successfully block pipeline construction to advocates for “radical” health care solutions such as needle exchanges to school teachers who go on strike, these newly energized activists may offer a better path forward for both policy and candidates to represent the needs of poor and working Americans. By engaging activists and scholars outside the coastal bubbles, this collection offers insights into several overlooked areas, including working-class women's activism, victories in new labor struggle (especially in staunchly right-to-work states) and new organizing principles in Jackson, Mississippi—"America's most radical city"—that are bringing about meaningful racial and economic change on the ground. Taken together, the essays in Left Elsewhere show that today's political language is insufficient to convey what's happening in these areas and examine what, if any, coherent set of politics can be assigned to them. Contributors William J. Barber II, Thomas Baxter, Lesly-Marie Buer, Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Nancy Isenberg, Elaine C. Kamarck, Michael Kazin, Toussaint Losier, Robin McDowell, Bob Moser, Hugh Ryan, Matt Stoller, Ruy Teixeira, Makani Themba, Jessica Wilkerson

FDR -- the wily political opportunist glowing with charismatic charm, a leader venerated and hated with equal vigor -- such is one common notion of a president elected to an unprecedented four terms. But in this first comprehensive study of Roosevelt's leadership of the Democratic party, Sean Savage reveals a different man. He contends that, far from being a mere opportunist, Roosevelt brought to the party a conscious agenda, a longterm strategy of creating a liberal Democracy that would be an enduring majority force in American politics. The roots of Roosevelt's plan for the party ran back to his experiences with New York politics in the 1920s. It was here, Savage argues, that Roosevelt first began to perceive that a pluralistic voting base and a liberal philosophy offered the best way for Democrats to contend with the established Republican organization. With the collapse of the economy in 1929 and the discrediting of Republican fiscal policy, Roosevelt was ready to carry his views to the national scene when elected president in 1932. Through his analysis of the New Deal, Savage shows how Roosevelt made use of these programs to develop a policy agenda for the Democratic party, to establish a liberal ideology, and, most important, to create a coalition of interest groups and voting blocs that would continue to sustain the party long after his death. A significant aspect of Roosevelt's leadership was his reform of the Democratic National Committee, which was designed to make the party's organization more open and participatory in setting electoral platforms and in raising financial support. Savage's exploration of Roosevelt's party leadership offers a new perspective on the New Deal era and on one of America's great presidents that will be valuable for historians and political scientists alike.

Philip Roth's bestselling alternate history—the chilling story of what happens to one family when America elects a charismatic, isolationist president—is soon to be an HBO limited series. In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America–and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother. "A terrific political novel . . . Sinister, vivid, dreamlike . . . creepily plausible. . . You turn the pages, astonished and frightened.” — The New York Times Book Review

A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past.

Bestselling historian Keith Lowe's The Fear and the Freedom looks at the astonishing innovations that sprang from WWII and how they changed the world. The Fear and the Freedom is Keith Lowe’s follow-up to Savage Continent. While that book painted a picture of Europe in all its horror as WWII was ending, The Fear and the Freedom looks at all that has happened since, focusing on the changes that were brought about because of WWII—simultaneously one of the most catastrophic and most innovative events in history. It killed millions and eradicated empires, creating the idea of human rights, and giving birth to the UN. It was because of the war that penicillin was first mass-produced, computers were developed, and rockets first sent to the edge of space. The war created new philosophies, new ways of living, new architecture: this was the era of Le Corbusier, Simone de Beauvoir and Chairman Mao. But amidst the waves of revolution and idealism there were also fears of globalization, a dread of the atom bomb, and an unexpressed longing for a past forever gone. All of these things and more came about as direct consequences of the war and continue to affect the world that we live in today. The Fear and the Freedom is the first book to look at all of the changes brought about because of WWII. Based on research from five continents, Keith Lowe’s The Fear and the Freedom tells the very human story of how the war not only transformed our world but also changed the very way we think about ourselves.