Book

The Plots Against the President: FDR, A Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right

2019

Synopsis

An anarchist assassin, demagogues, and a plotted coup d’état—the forgotten history of the forces that lashed out against FDR as he took the helm of a country on the brink. In March 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt finally became the nation's thirty-second president. The man swept in by a landslide four months earlier now took charge of a country in the grip of panic brought on by economic catastrophe. Though no one yet knew it-not even Roosevelt-it was a radical moment in America. And with all of its unmistakable resonance with events of today, it is a cautionary tale. The Plots Against the President follows Roosevelt as he struggled to right the teetering nation, armed with little more than indomitable optimism and the courage to try anything. His bold New Deal experiments provoked a backlash from both extremes of the political spectrum. Wall Street bankers threatened by FDR's policies made common cause with populist demagogues like Huey Long and Charles Coughlin. But just how far FDR's enemies were willing to go to thwart him has never been fully explored. Two startling events that have been largely ignored by historians frame Sally Denton's swift, tense narrative of a year of fear: anarchist Giuseppe Zangara's assassination attempt on Roosevelt, and a plutocrats' plot to overthrow the government that would come to be known as the Wall Street Putsch. The Plots Against the President throws light on the darkest chapter of the Depression and the moments when the fate of the American republic hung in the balance.

Suggested Reading

The Five Weeks Of Giuseppe Zangara

In Miami Florida, on February 15, 1933, Giuseppe Zangara, an unemployed New Jersey bricklayer from Italy, fired five pistol shots at the back of President-elect Franklin Roosevelt's head from only twenty-five feet away. While all five rounds missed their target, each bullet found a separate victim. ...

The Pink Lady: The Many Lives of Helen Gahagan Douglas

If Hillary Clinton struggled to crack the glass ceiling in 2008, imagine the challenges that faced Helen Gahagan Douglas. She was a three-term Congresswoman beginning in 1944, and ran for the U .S. Senate against Richard Nixon just three decades after women gained the right to vote. Douglas was also...

We use cookies to improve your experience on our website. By continuing to browse, you accept our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.