AWAKENING THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA

How Franklin Roosevelt used his political and oratorical acumen to persuade Americans to rebuff a national hero, stand for democracy, and defeat tyranny.

Sparrow, former director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, brings his storytelling talents and familiarity with the 32nd president to bear in this engaging book. The narrative centers on Roosevelt's desire to make the U.S. the world's foremost opponent of tyranny, countering the isolationist America First Committee, whose figurehead, aviator Charles Lindbergh, was at the time one of the world’s most famous people. Essentially, the battle pitted the “Spirit of St. Louis” against what Roosevelt termed the "Spirit of America.” As Lincoln said, public opinion is everything in American politics. Sparrow reminds readers that when Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, Lindbergh and America Firsters, whose ranks included influential industrialists, media figures, and politicians, held significant sway. In several major radio addresses and speeches, they played on Americans’ wariness of another prolonged war or further foreign entanglement, and thinly veiled anti-Jewish sentiment accompanied the seeming willingness to cooperate with the Third Reich. As the author shows, Roosevelt had to contend with such opinions in addition to the Neutrality Acts, which initially stymied aid to the British. Sparrow vividly describes how Roosevelt shaped his rhetoric not only to counter Lindbergh, but to convince the public to reelect him for an unprecedented third term and reinforce the U.S. military as the great defender of democratic principles. In addition to shining a light on Roosevelt's gift for rhetoric and language, political genius, and administrative strength, Sparrow rightly emphasizes other traits more readily associated with Roosevelt's cousin, Theodore—namely, physical courage and the embodiment of the so-called American spirit. This strong, succinct, and thorough book reverberates with Rooseveltian aplomb.

A wonderfully written and researched study of a crucial period in 20th-century America.