Book publisher Oxford University Press produces "Oxford histories", a line of book series usually intended to broadly synthesize historical topics.[1] In 1961, historians Richard Hofstadter and C. Vann Woodward began co-editing the Oxford History of the United States.[2] Their goal for the series was to produce a line of academically credible books that non-academic audiences would also find readable,[3] and The Baltimore Sun anticipated the series would be affordable for "the family budget".[4] Hofstadter died in 1970,[5] before the series published any books.[6] The press publicly announced in 1970 that the Oxford History of the United States series was forthcoming and that a series volume about the New Deal would be written by historian Ernest R. May.[7]
By 1982, when the series published its first volume—The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789—and issued another list of projected titles with their authors, historian David M. Kennedy had replaced May.[8] At the time, Kennedy was a professor of history at Stanford University and had authored the 1980 Over Here: The First World War and American Society.[9] Kennedy's own parents had lived through the Great Depression.[10] Growing up, his family had attributed the Depression to United States president Herbert Hoover, calling it the "Hoover Depression".[11]
In an interview, Kennedy explained that in writing Freedom from Fear he focused on synthesizing existing scholarship and did not travel to archives for research.[11] Chapter manuscripts for Kennedy's volume met Woodward's resounding approval, though in July 1998 he advised Kennedy to shorten certain portions of the nearly 1,000-page manuscript.[12]
Publication
Oxford University Press published Freedom from Fear as part of the Oxford History of the United States in May 1999.[13] The book is 954 pages long,[14] and it weighs approximately six pounds.[15] There are 24 maps of battles,[16] 48 halftone images,[17] a bibliographic essay,[18] and a 59-page index.[19] On release, Freedom from Fear sold for $39.95 (USD, equivalent to $73 in 2023)[20][a] or £30 (GBP, equivalent to $66 in 2023).[22] In 2001, Oxford University Press published a one-volume paperback edition that was 992 pages long and sold for $22.50 (USD, equivalent to $39 in 2023).[23]
In Freedom from Fear, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the Great Depression's beginning[34] but did not cause it, as according to Kennedy international economic conditions were more responsible for the economic depression.[23] Kennedy's depiction of United States president Herbert Hoover's handling of the early depression is sympathetic.[35]Freedom from Fear casts his belief that the American economy would recover without intervention as plausible given available information at the time and emphasizing the interventions of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and Federal Farm Board during his presidency.[23] In Kennedy's portrayal, Hoover's policies foreshadowed those of subsequent president Franklin D. Roosevelt but were insufficient to alleviate the Great Depression's humanitarian crisis.[36][c]
Roosevelt himself predominates as the lead figure and protagonist of Freedom from Fear.[38] In the book, Roosevelt appears as an active president meaningfully responsible for pulling the United States out of the Depression.[39] Kennedy depicts Roosevelt as having laid the foundations of modern liberalism in the United States[25] and having been "a truly brilliant politician with the skills to inspire, manipulate, and bend people", Booklist summarizes.[40]Freedom from Fear is more ambiguous in its depiction of Roosevelt's establishment of the New Deal.[41] Kennedy claims the concept of the New Deal was unclear to voters in 1932[42] and that Roosevelt's approach as president was initially improvisational, producing a "ramshackle, hastily assembled" array of programs, in Kennedy's words, that did not stabilize until 1935.[41][d]
Reception
Storytelling
Freedom from Fear received acclaim upon its release. According to historian William Rubinstein, the book is "a highly successful, vivid, and fair narrative account".[44] Journalist Rick Perlstein praised its "colorful details and the clanking, large-geared narrative engine" and argued that one "could even call it beach reading".[27] The Los Angeles Times averred that "[e]ven those who thought they knew it all, or who indeed lived through all or most of those years, will find illuminating information and insights on almost every page" of Freedom from Fear.[35]The New York Times Book Review declared it "the best one-volume account of the Roosevelt era currently available".[45] Historian Thomas Blantz considered it a "book for all readers", arguing lay audiences would appreciate the "absorbing story".[46]Publishers Weekly's review called Freedom from Fear "the definitive history of the most important decades of the American century".[47] According to The Boston Globe, in Freedom from Fear Kennedy "makes [the history] his story in a way no one has ever before".[25]
Coverage
Historian Blantz believed that scholars would "find [Freedom from Fear] a balanced review" of research on the era.[46] According to Foreign Affairs, the book "had breadth and depth, fully comprehended political, military, economic, and social developments, and integrated a wealth of specialized scholarship".[48]Booklist considered it "comprehensive".[40]
There were reviewers who criticized the selectiveness of Freedom from Fear's coverage. The Journal of American History called the subtitle, The American People, a "curious choice" because "the 'American people' appear with conspicuous infrequency", as Freedom from Fear has "a traditional cast" and although Kennedy includes women and Americans of diverse ethnic background, he does not analyze gender or ethnicity as such.[30] Writing for The New Leader, historian David Oshinsky wrote that "ordinary Americans... too often appear as passive victims of injustice, poverty and pain", leaving the impression that social change happened only because of leaders, without the input of the public.[49] According to historian Harvard Sitkoff, "women are all but invisible" in the book, with only twenty women named in the entire index.[19]The New York Times Book Review reported that although Kennedy does "consider minorities and women" in the book, they are "decidedly secondary" and "[d]ead white males predominate".[45] Oshinsky criticized the book's inattention to popular culture,[49] and the Book Review stated that "American culture, particularly popular culture, is all but ignored".[45]
Reviewers noted Freedom from Fear's coverage of the military history of the United States during World War II. Parameters called the coverage of the war a "comprehensive treatment" that "artfully weaves battlefront and homefront".[50] Historian Kevin Boyle wrote Freedom from Fear covered wartime diplomacy and battles with "compelling detail".[41] According to historian Justus Drew Doenecke, Kennedy "is at his best describing the battles of World War II, conveying an immediacy seldom found in combat accounts".[51]
Blantz complimented Freedom from Fear's depiction of the United States home front during World War II.[52] Boyle called Freedom from Fear "a forceful reminder that for the millions of Americans who suffered through a generation of depression and war, the costs of the postwar era were well worth bearing".[41] Doenecke averred the book "could do more" to analyze Roosevelt's "incredibly poor" domestic administration during the war, such as presiding over the incarceration of Japanese Americans and barring the United States to refugees from Nazi Germany.[53]
Kennedy, David M. (1999). Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0195038347.
— (2001). Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (paperback ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0195038347.
— (2003). The American People in the Great Depression: Freedom from Fear, Part One (paperback ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0195168921.
— (2003). The American People in World War II: Freedom from Fear, Part Two (paperback ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0195168938.
— (2010). Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. Narrated by Tom Weiner (audiobook ed.). Blackstone Audio.
^The coverage of specifically the New Deal encompasses approximately one third of the total book.[28]
^The trope in historical scholarship of Hoover and Roosevelt initially having similar responses to the Great Depression originates, according to historian Eric Rauchway, from the memoir of Marriner S. Eccles, chair of the Federal Reserve under Roosevelt (which Freedom from Fear quotes) but is not accurate to the historical record, as Hoover opposed Roosevelt's promised New Deal for the remainder of his presidency and throughout his life after the presidency; in Hoover's own words, he believed the New Deal "would destroy the very foundations of the American system".[37]
^This depiction of the New Deal has since been contested. According to historian Eric Rauchway in the journal Modern American History, believing Roosevelt did not have a clear plan for the New Deal and that voters did not understand it before he was elected is an "academic urban legend" circulated in some secondary sources, as Franklin D. Roosevelt in fact "ran on the New Deal and was elected on it", as he had "a plan of action for the New Deal" and "made its components abundantly clear to the public".[43]
Cobb, James C. (2022). C. Vann Woodward: America's Historian. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN978-1-4696-7021-8.
Katznelson, Ira (2013). Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time. Liveright Publishing Corporation. ISBN978-0-87140-450-3.
Journals
Blumberg, Barbara (Fall 2000). "The Oxford History of the United States. Volume IX, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. By David M. Kennedy". The Historian. 63 (1): 155–156. JSTOR24450878.
Boyle, Kevin (February 2000). "Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945, David M. Kennedy". Labor History. 41 (1): 108–109. ISSN0023-656X.
Burnard, Trevor (August 2011). "America the Good, America the Brave, America the Free: Reviewing the Oxford History of the United States". Journal of American Studies. 45 (3): 407–420. doi:10.1017/S0021875811000508. hdl:11343/33008. JSTOR23016778.
Cate, Alan (Spring 2000). "Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. By David M. Kennedy". Book Reviews. Parameters. 30 (1). doi:10.55540/0031-1723.1965.
Davies, Gareth (June 2000). "Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. By David M. Kennedy". The Historical Journal. 43 (2): 598–600. JSTOR3021046.
Van Heyningen, E. B. (1986). "The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789. By R. Middlekauff". Boekbesprekings/Book Reviews. South African Historical Journal. 18: 298–300. doi:10.1080/02582478608671616.
Magazines
Doenecke, Justus D. (November–December 2004). "Hoover to Hiroshima: So You Think American History from the Great Depression Through World War II Holds No Surprises? Read on". Books & Culture. Vol. 10, no. 6. pp. 24–26.
Rubinstein, William D. (September 2000). "Untitled review of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 and America Divided: The Civil War of the Sixties". History Today. Vol. 50, no. 9. p. 60. ISSN0018-2753.
Zelikow, Philip (November–December 1999). "Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. By David M. Kennedy". Foreign Affairs. Vol. 78, no. 6. p. 149. doi:10.2307/20049569. JSTOR20049569.
Freedom Freedom (disambiguation) Freedom (gamer) Freedom Riders Economic freedom Freedom of religion Academic freedom Freedom of the press Freedom Train Intellectual freedom Freedom of assembly Freedom of the City Freedom of speech Freedom Summer Freedom of movement Club of Freedom Freedom House The Freedom Association Washington Freedom Freedom to Marry Freedom! '90 Freedom of association Artistic freedom Indices of economic freedom Freedom Schools Freedom City The Road to Freedom Political freedom Freedom of information in the United States Freedom Communications Media freedom in the Europea…
n Union Freedom Caucus The Freedom Singers Freedom from Hunger Freedom Fighters Changhe Freedom International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 Statue of Freedom Freedom of speech by country Freedom of thought Freedom Writers Four Freedoms Award Freedom of speech (disambiguation) Escape from Freedom Freedom Vote Free as in Freedom Degrees of freedom Freedom of expression in India Freedom of Expression (book) Freedom Air Freedom of speech in Denmark On the Freedom of the Will Freedom Holding Academic freedom in the Middle East Freedom Fry Office of Religious Freedom (Canada) Presidential Medal of Freedom Freedom 45 Freedom of religion in Europe by country Vets For Freedom Freedom of information DGUSA Freedom Fight Freedom in the World For Freedom Freedom of speech in Kazakhstan Flexity Freedom Freedom Festival Battle Cry of Freedom Oh, Freedom List of freedom indices Trenton Freedom Freedom Monument (Bydgoszcz) Degrees of freedom (statistics) World Press Freedom Index Frisian freedom Freedom Toaster Freedom of the press in Sri Lanka Freedom of speech in Brazil Sweet Freedom Freedom for the Thought That We Hate Freedom to Create Prize Peace and Freedom Party Freedom Riders National Monum