Backlash: The Killing of the New Deal - Hardcover

Shogan Author Of No Sense Of Decency: The Army-McCarthy Hearings, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1566636744 ISBN 13: 9781566636742

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, 2006

Synopsis

On election night 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt was sitting on top of the political world. Within a year, two seismic events would transform the political landscape. A nationwide outbreak of labor unrest, particularly the spread of a new and potent union weapon, the sit-down strike, and FDR's launching of a scheme to overhaul the Supreme Court would combine to generate a fierce public backlash that tarnished Roosevelt's mystique and drained the lifeblood from the New Deal. This is the engrossing story that Robert Shogan relates so compellingly in Backlash.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Shogan has also written The Double-Edged Sword, The Fate of the Union, Hard Bargain, Riddle of Power, Bad News, Constant Conflict, and The Battle of Blair Mountain. A former prizewinning national political correspondent for Newsweek and Los Angeles Times, he now lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

From Publishers Weekly:

Former Newsweek and L.A. Times political correspondent Shogan (The Double-Edged Sword), delivers an insightful though not innovative account of how two key events put an end to New Deal advances during F.D.R.'s second term. Election day, 1936, found Roosevelt at the height of his powers and popularity, and contemplating grand strategies for advancing the domestic programs launched during his first administration. But as Shogan clearly shows, militant unionism gained ground nationwide, upsetting industrial output and slowing the rehabilitation of the Depression-plagued American economy. Second, F.D.R.'s ill-starred and widely unpopular attempt to overhaul the Supreme Court cost him precious political capital in Congress. This same misadventure also cost the president vital PR capital with the electorate, hobbling his ability to rally support for other programs. Although Roosevelt was re-elected for two more terms, his capacity for creating, inspiring and passing the type of social programs set in place during his first term remained diminished, some would argue fatally so. Shogan does a good job of painting the times and the men: Roosevelt himself, labor leader John L. Lewis, Roosevelt's aide Tommy Corcoran and his prickly and unpredictable vice-president, "Cactus Jack" Garner, all of whom played vital roles as the New Deal sputtered and stopped. (Sept. 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1566636744
• ISBN 13: 9781566636742
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288