Winter War

The period between a presidential election and inauguration has no constitutional name or purpose, but in these months, political legacies can be made or broken. In Winter War, Eric Rauchway shows how the transition from Herbert Hoover to FDR in the winter of 1932-33 was the most acrimonious in American history. The two men represented not only different political parties, but entirely different approaches to the question of the day: how to recover from the economic collapse and the Great Depression. And in their responses to that question, they help launch, in the space of a few months, the political ideologies that would dominate the rest of the twentieth century.

As Rauchway shows, the period between the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt on November 8, 1932, and his inauguration on March 4, 1933, was one of tremendous political ferment. FDR took his first steps to launch the New Deal, while the outgoing Herbert Hoover laid the foundation for an anti-New Deal conservative movement. Rauchway reveals that, far from the haphazard expertimenter he is often thought to be, FDR had a coherent plan for saving the country from the Great Depression even before he arrived in office. He laid the foundations for that plan, giving speeches about a national bank holiday and raising farm prices, while also meeting with experts up and down the Eastern seaboard in order to staff his cabinet with the most innovative economic minds around.

Hoover, for his part, began to plot his revenge and his return to the presidency (he had only served one term). He blocked FDR's moves wherever he could, spoke bluntly about the supposed danger the New Deal posed to democracy, and attempted to convince anyone who would listen that FDR was not up to the task of the presidency, whether intellectually or physically. The embittered and increasingly conservative Hoover launched the opposition to the New Deal - and thereby the modern conservative movement - before any New Deal legislation even reached the floor in Congress.

Drawing from previously unexploited sources to paint an intimate portrait of political infighting at the highest levels, Eric Rauchway offers a new account of the making of twentieth century liberalism, and its backlash.

“"Not since the secession winter of 1860-61 had American democracy seemed so imperiled. Yet the interregnum between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt has been largely overlooked by historians. Eric Rauchway remedies this lack in a riveting, thought-provoking book that is especially valuable at a time when political emotions are again running high."-- H.W. Brands, author of Heirs of the Founders”

"Winter War is a vivid narrative about the critical debate that took place at the pit of the Great Depression between presidents with starkly different visions of the nation's future. You can hear the echoes of FDR vs. Hoover blaring out from every cable news channel today. Eric Rauchway, one of America's best political historians, has written a wise story about the past that anyone who cares about the divide between progressives and conservatives should read."--Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University and author of War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918
"A crisp narrative of the four-month interregnum between Franklin D. Roosevelt's victory in November 1932 and his assumption of the presidency in March 1933."--The Atlantic
"In this brilliant new book, Eric Rauchway provides powerful new insights about the making and the meaning of the New Deal. In the end, Winter War will change not just what we thought we knew about Hoover and Roosevelt, but how we have understood the origins of modern conservatism itself."--Kevin M. Kruse, author of One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America
"Not since the secession winter of 1860-61 had American democracy seemed so imperiled. Yet the interregnum between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt has been largely overlooked by historians. Eric Rauchway remedies this lack in a riveting, thought-provoking book that is especially valuable at a time when political emotions are again running high."--H.W. Brands, author of Heirs of the Founders
"Presidential transitions matter. This brilliant book describes how the transition from Herbert Hoover to Franklin Roosevelt changed the world, and how it almost did not happen. The author explains why the trenchant debates around the New Deal still resonate in our current partisanship. Every citizen concerned about political leadership should read this book."--Jeremi Suri, author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office
"Rauchway paints a vivid picture of what that looks like as he describes the Herculean efforts of outgoing Herbert Hoover to thwart incoming Franklin Roosevelt's 'New Deal.'"--New York Journal of Books
"The book showcases strong scholarship, including deep engagement with archival materials, that a general audience can appreciate. This is an informative and readable history."--Publishers Weekly
"Though scholars have not ignored those four months, the period was a spectacularly eventful one that deserves closer attention. Rauchway ... does just that in this lively, opinionated, and definitely not revisionist history."--Kirkus

Eric Rauchway is a distinguished historian and expert on the Progressive and New Deal eras at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of several acclaimed books on the subject, including The Money Makers, The Great Depression and the New Deal, and Blessed Among Nations, and has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the New Republic, the Los Angeles Times, Dissent, The American Prospect. He lives in Davis, California.

The period between a presidential election and inauguration has no constitutional name or purpose, but in these months, political legacies can be made or broken. In Winter War , Eric Rauchway shows how the transition from Herbert Hoover to FDR in the winter of 1932-33 was the most acrimonious in American history. The two men represented not only different political parties, but entirely different approaches to the question of the day: how to recover from the economic collapse and the Great Depression. And in their responses to that question, they help launch, in the space of a few months, the political ideologies that would dominate the rest of the twentieth century.As Rauchway shows, the period between the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt on November 8, 1932, and his inauguration on March 4, 1933, was one of tremendous political ferment. FDR took his first steps to launch the New Deal, while the outgoing Herbert Hoover laid the foundation for an anti-New Deal conservative movement. Rauchway reveals that, far from the haphazard expertimenter he is often thought to be, FDR had a coherent plan for saving the country from the Great Depression even before he arrived in office. He laid the foundations for that plan, giving speeches about a national bank holiday and raising farm prices, while also meeting with experts up and down the Eastern seaboard in order to staff his cabinet with the most innovative economic minds around. Hoover, for his part, began to plot his revenge and his return to the presidency (he had only served one term). He blocked FDR's moves wherever he could, spoke bluntly about the supposed danger the New Deal posed to democracy, and attempted to convince anyone who would listen that FDR was not up to the task of the presidency, whether intellectually or physically. The embittered and increasingly conservative Hoover launched the opposition to the New Deal - and thereby the modern conservative movement - before any New Deal legislation even reached the floor in Congress. Drawing from previously unexploited sources to paint an intimate portrait of political infighting at the highest levels, Eric Rauchway offers a new account of the making of twentieth century liberalism, and its backlash.

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