Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR’s 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal
About this audiobook
Award-winning historian David Pietrusza boldly steers clear of the past narrative regarding Franklin Roosevelt’s unprecedented 1936 reelection landslide, weaving an enormously more intricate, ever more surprising tale of a polarized nation; of America’s most complex, calculating, and politically successful president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the very top of his Machiavellian game; and the unlocking of the puzzle of how our society, our politics, and our parties fitfully reinvented themselves.
With in-depth examinations of rabble-rousing Democratic US Senator Huey Long and his assassination before he was able to challenge FDR; powerful, but hated newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, who blasted FDR’s “Raw Deal”; wildly popular, radical radio host Father Coughlin; the steamrolled passage of Social Security and backlash against it; the era’s racism and anti-Semitism; American Socialism and Communism; and a Supreme Court seemingly bent on dismantling the New Deal altogether, Roosevelt Sweeps Nation is a vivid portrait of a dynamic Depression-Era America.
Crafting his account from an impressive and unprecedented collection of primary and secondary sources, Pietrusza has produced an engrossing, original, and authoritative account of an election, a president, and a nation at the crossroads. The nation’s stakes were high ... and the parallels hauntingly akin to today’s dangerously strife-ridden political and culture wars.
About the author
David Pietrusza’s book Rothstein was a finalist for an Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category, and 1920 was honored by Kirkus Reviews as being among their “Books of the Year.” Pietrusza has appeared on Good Morning America, Morning Joe, The Voice of America, and more. He lives in Scotia, New York.
Jack de Golia has narrated over seventy-five audiobooks in a wide range of genres. His narrations include the Project series by Alex Lukeman and Remembering the Battle of the Crater by Kevin Levin.
