Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

â€œA powerful argument, swept along by Katznelsonâ€™s robust prose and the imposing scholarship that lies behind it.â€â€”Kevin Boyle, New York Times Book Review

A work that â€œdeeply reconceptualizes the New Deal and raises countless provocative questionsâ€ (David Kennedy), Fear Itself changes the ground rules for our understanding of this pivotal era in American history. Ira Katznelson examines the New Deal through the lens of a pervasive, almost existential fear that gripped a world defined by the collapse of capitalism and the rise of competing dictatorships, as well as a fear created by the ruinous racial divisions in American society. Katznelson argues that American democracy was both saved and distorted by a Faustian collaboration that guarded racial segregation as it built a new national state to manage capitalism and assert global power. Fear Itself charts the creation of the modern American state and â€œhow a belief in the common good gave way to a central government dominated by interest-group politics and obsessed with national securityâ€ (Louis Menand, The New Yorker).
Country USA
Manufacturer Liveright
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2013-02-25
Format Kindle eBook

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