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The New Common: How the COVID-19 Pandemic is Transforming Society
by Emile Aarts Hein Fleuren Margriet Sitskoorn Ton WilthagenThis open access book presents the scientific views of some fifty experts on how they believe the COVID-19 pandemic is currently affecting society, and how it will continue to do so in the years to come. Using the concept of a “common” (in the sense of common values, common places, common goods, and common sense), they elaborate on the transition from an Old Common to a New Common. In carefully crafted chapters, the authors address expected shifts in major fields like health, education, finance, business, work, and citizenship, applying concepts from law, psychology, economics, sociology, religious studies, and computer science to do so. Many of the authors anticipate an acceleration of the digital transformation in the forthcoming years, but at the same time, they argue that a successful shift to a new common can only be achieved by re-evaluating life on our planet, strengthening resilience at an individual level, and assuming more responsibility at a societal level.
The New Communist Third World: An Essay in Political Economy (Routledge Library Editions: Soviet Foreign Policy #11)
by Peter WilesThe New Communist Third World (1982) discuss the economic policies of the Soviet Union towards the countries of the developing world adopting a Marxist-Leninist form of government. The authors demonstrate as well the variety of political systems covered by the term Communism, and provide an interesting counter-balance to traditional views of the Third World and aid policies.
The New Companion to Urban Design
by Tridib Banerjee Anastasia Loukaitou-SiderisThe New Companion to Urban Design continues the assemblage of rich and critical ideas about urban form and design that began with the Companion to Urban Design (Routledge, 2011). With chapters from a new set of contributors, this sequel offers a more comparative perspective representing multiple voices and perspectives from the Global South. The essays in this volume are organized in three parts: Part I: Comparative Urbanism; Part II: Challenges; and Part III: Opportunities. Each part contains distinct sections designed to address specific themes, and includes a list of annotated suggested further readings at the end of each chapter. Part I: Comparative Urbanism examines different variants of urbanism in the Global North and the Global South, produced by a new economic order characterized by the mobility of labor, capital, information, and technology. Part II: Challenges discusses some of the contemporary challenges that cities of the Global North and the Global South are facing and the possible role of urban design. This part discusses spatial claims and conflicts, challenges generated by urban informality, explosive growth or dramatic shrinkage of the urban settlement, gentrification and displacement, and mimesis, simulacra and lack of authenticity. Part III: Aspirations discusses some normative goals that urban design interventions aspire to bring about in cities of the Global North and the Global South. These include resilience and sustainability, health, conservation/restoration, justice, intelligence, access and mobility, and arts and culture. The New Companion to Urban Design is primarily intended for scholars and graduate students interested in cities and their built environment. It offers an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current thinking across a range of disciplines including urban design, planning, urban studies, and geography.
The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
by John PerkinsShocking Bestseller: The original version of this astonishing tell-all book spent 73 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, has sold more than 1.25 million copies, and has been translated into 32 languages. New Revelations: Featuring 15 explosive new chapters, this expanded edition of Perkins's classic bestseller brings the story of economic hit men (EHMs) up to date and, chillingly, home to the US. Over 40 percent of the book is new, including chapters identifying today's EHMs and a detailed chronology extensively documenting EHM activity since the first edition was published in 2004.Former economic hit man John Perkins shares new details about the ways he and others cheated countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Then he reveals how the deadly EHM cancer he helped create has spread far more widely and deeply than ever in the US and everywhere else--to become the dominant system of business, government, and society today. Finally, he gives an insider view of what we each can do to change it.Economic hit men are the shock troops of what Perkins calls the corporatocracy, a vast network of corporations, banks, colluding governments, and the rich and powerful people tied to them. If the EHMs can't maintain the corrupt status quo through nonviolent coercion, the jackal assassins swoop in. The heart of this book is a completely new section, over 100 pages long, that exposes the fact that all the EHM and jackal tools--false economics, false promises, threats, bribes, extortion, debt, deception, coups, assassinations, unbridled military power--are used around the world today exponentially more than during the era Perkins exposed over a decade ago.The material in this new section ranges from the Seychelles, Honduras, Ecuador, and Libya to Turkey, Western Europe, Vietnam, China, and, in perhaps the most unexpected and sinister development, the United States, where the new EHMs--bankers, lobbyists, corporate executives, and others--"con governments and the public into submitting to policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer."But as dark as the story gets, this reformed EHM also provides hope. Perkins offers a detailed list of specific actions each of us can take to transform what he calls a failing Death Economy into a Life Economy that provides sustainable abundance for all.
The New Conservatives: Restoring America's Commitment to Family, Community, and Industry
by Oren Cass American CompassFor the fifth anniversary of American Compass, the conservative think tank hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "the forefront of rethinking traditional conservative economic ideas," comes a collection of its best, most influential writingAmerican Compass is the nerve center of the New American Right, the political strategists and policy experts navigating a new Republican path through the economic issues shaping today&’s political landscape—trade and immigration, technology and finance, industrial policy, education, welfare, labor, family, and more. The New Conservatives is the organization&’s ur-text, a collection of its most influential writing on why and how true conservative government fosters markets that serve society—not the other way around. As The Economist put it, American Compass is &“a slaughterhouse for Republican sacred cows.&” With essays and manifestos by American Compass founder Oren Cass, New America co-founder Michael Lind, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Affairs founding editor Yuval Levin, American Affairs founding editor Julius Krein, author and former American Conservative senior editor Helen Andrews, and Comment senior editor Brian Dijkema, The New Conservatives breaks down America&’s economic and political failures before drawing upon a re-assessed American conservative tradition to prove how an innovative conservative movement, breaking from the GOPs free-market dogmatism, is defined by three pillars—productive markets, supportive communities, and responsive politics. The book explores American Compass&’ groundbreaking projects, like the Cost-of-Thriving Index, which explains how the typical American worker could once provide a family with middle-class security on 40 weeks of work but now requires more than 60—a problem, there being 52 weeks in a year. It refines the American conservative tradition, which most people today wrongly assume emphasized free markets and limited government, reminding readers that the early American republic pursued a robust national economic policy with high protective tariffs and intensive public investment. It offers new conservative critiques of modern markets that have failed to deliver on capitalism&’s promise that globalization, cheap labor, and financial markets will deliver widespread prosperity. And it sets capitalism&’s sights on community: re-calibrating a right-of-center attitude toward families, worker power and solidarity, and higher education. The New Conservatives, published in celebration of American Compass&’ fifth anniversary, is a conservative manifest, a ship&’s log, and an updated nautical chart to an economy in which free markets are not an end unto themselves, but are rather a means to an end—national liberty and prosperity—steered by public policy.
The New Constructivism in International Relations Theory
by David M. McCourtIn this engaging book, David M. McCourt makes the case for New Constructivist approaches to international relations scholarship. The book traces constructivist work on culture, identity, and norms within the historical, geographical, and professional contexts of world politics, and reflects on recent innovations in fields including practice theory, relationalism, and network analysis. Copiously illustrated with real-world examples from the rise of China and US foreign policy, it illuminates the processes by which international politics are built. This is both an accessible tour of Constructivism to date and a persuasive declaration for its continuing application and value.
The New Continentalism
by Kent E. CalderIn this groundbreaking book Kent E. Calder argues that a new transnational configuration is emerging in Asia, driven by economic growth, rising energy demand, and the erosion of longstanding geopolitical divisions. What Calder calls the New Silk Road—with a strengthening multi-faceted relationship between East Asia and the Middle East at its core—could eventually emerge as one of the world’s most important multilateral configurations. Straddling the border between comparative politics and international relations theory, this important book will stimulate debate and discussion in both fields.
The New Corporation: How "Good" Corporations Are Bad for Democracy
by Joel Bakan"A very important book, an arresting study directed to a central issue of the times." —Noam ChomskyFrom the author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power comes this deeply informed and unflinching look at the way corporations have slyly rebranded themselves as socially conscious entities ready to tackle society's problems, while CEO compensation soars, income inequality is at all-time highs, and democracy sits in a precarious situation.Over the last decade and a half, business leaders have been calling for a new kind of capitalism. With income inequality soaring, wages stagnating, and a climate crisis escalating, they realized that they had to make social and environmental values the very core of their messaging. There is just one small problem with their new conscientious pitch: corporations are still, first and foremost, concerned with their bottom-line. In lucid and engaging prose, Joel Bakan lays bare a litany of dangerous corporate actions and documents how increasing corporate freedom encroaches on individual liberty and democracy. Through deep research and interviews with both top executives and their sharpest critics, he exposes the inhumanity and destructive force of the current order—profit-driven privatization subverting the public good, business-pressured governments neglecting duties to protect the environment and citizens&’ rights, the increasing alienation we experience as every aspect of life is economized, and how the novel Coronavirus pandemic reveals the unjust fault lines of our corporate-led society. Beyond diagnosing major problems, in The New Corporation Bakan narrates a hopeful path forward. He reveals how citizens around the world are fighting back and making gains in ways that bolster democracy and benefit ordinary citizens rather than the corporate elite.
The New Counter-insurgency Era in Critical Perspective
by David Martin Jones Celeste Ward Gventer M.L.R. SmithThe notion of counter-insurgency has become a dominant paradigm in American and British thinking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This volume brings together international academics and practitioners to evaluate the broader theoretical and historical factors that underpin COIN, providing a critical reappraisal of counter-insurgency thinking.
The New Critique of Ideology
by Ricardo CamargoThis book offers a new ideology critique for political analysis by revisiting Habermas via a Žižekian reading. The book includes an application of the theory to the case of the political consensus reached in Chile's post-Pinochet.
The New Crusade: America's War On Terrorism
by Rahul MahajanThe attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 and the US government response, especially after the bombing of Afghanistan, transformed US and global politics. —Will the US-led war on terrorism rid the world of this scourge, or fuel the hatred and suffering on which it feeds? —Will the middle East and central Asia be stabilized once Afghanistan is reduced to rubble and starvation, or become a zone of enduring war? —Within the United States, will it bring about new forms of patriotism and solidarity, or provide a platform for intensified racism, new assaults on civil liberties, and on the living standards of ordinary Americans? This book locates ongoing events in the aftermath of September 11 in historical context, analyzes their motive forces and possible outcomes, and examines the alternatives that face the anti-globalization movement and opponents of racism and war. The New Crusade sets out the main historical and political issues at stake clearly, accessibly, and comprehensively. It examines US policy in the middle East from the break-up of the Soviet Union, ongoing sanctions against Iraq, and the quest for a US oil pipeline from the former Soviet republics through Afghanistan; the ideology of the National Security State and its implications for global conflict; the nature of humanitarian interventions in the Third World; and the questions of international law raised by terrorism. It concludes with a fresh appraisal of the options facing us today. Reflecting both deep knowledge of the region and the commitment and hands-on experience of a seasoned activist, Mahajan provides a powerful interpretation of events that will be decisive in the making of our time.
The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy
by Michael Sells Emran QureshiNot since the Crusades of the Middle Ages has Islam evoked the degree of fear, hostility, and ethnic and religious stereotyping that is evident throughout Western culture today. As conflicts continue to proliferate around the globe, the perception of a colossal, unyielding, and unavoidable struggle between Islam and the West has intensified. These numerous conflicts, both actual and ideological, have revived fears of an ongoing "clash of civilizations"—an intractable and irreconcilable conflict of values between Western cultures and an Islam that is portrayed as hostile and alien. The New Crusades takes head-on the idea of an emergent "Cold War" between Islam and the West. It explores the historical, political, and institutional forces that have raised the specter of a threatening and monolithic Muslim enemy and provides a nuanced critique of much received wisdom on the topic, particularly the "clash of civilizations" theory. Bringing together twelve of the most influential thinkers in Middle Eastern and religious studies—including Edward Said, Roy Mottahedeh, and Fatema Mernissi—this timely collection confronts such depictions of the Arab-Islamic world, showing their inner workings and how they both empower and shield from scrutiny Islamic radicals who operate from similar paradigms of inevitable and absolute conflict.
The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims
by Khaled A. Beydoun"The New Crusades is an intersectional milestone. It lucidly illustrates how converging systems of subordination, power, and violence related to Islamophobia are experienced across the globe."—Kimberlé Crenshaw, from the foreword The first book to examine global Islamophobia from a legal and ground-up perspective, from renowned public intellectual Khaled A. Beydoun. Islamophobia has spiraled into a global menace, and democratic and authoritarian regimes alike have deployed it as a strategy to persecute their Muslim populations. With this book, Khaled A. Beydoun details how the American War on Terror has facilitated and intensified the network of anti-Muslim campaigns unfolding across the world. The New Crusades is the first book of its kind, offering a critical and intimate examination of global Islamophobia and its manifestations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and regions beyond and in between. Through trenchant analysis and direct testimony from Muslims on the ground, Beydoun interrogates how Islamophobia acts as a unifying global thread of state and social bigotry, instigating both liberal and right-wing hate-mongering. Whether imposed by way of hijab bans in France, state-sponsored hate speech and violence in India, or the network of concentration camps in China, Islamophobia unravels into distinct systems of demonization and oppression across the post-9/11 geopolitical landscape. Lucid and poignant, The New Crusades reveals that Islamophobia is not only a worldwide phenomenon—it stands as one of the world's last bastions of acceptable hate.
The New Cuban Presence In The Caribbean
by Barry B Levine Franklin W KnightThe Caribbean area projects an image—not entirely accurate—of instability, and it is within that context that the United States and Cuba, the region's chief protagonists, struggle. This book explores in detail the history and nature of Cuba's influence in the Commonwealth Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America, as well as its relations wi
The New Cultural History of Peronism: Power and Identity in Mid-Twentieth-Century Argentina
by Matthew B. Karush Oscar ChamosaIn nearly every account of modern Argentine history, the first Peronist regime (1946-55) emerges as the critical juncture. Appealing to growing masses of industrial workers, Juan Pern built a powerful populist movement that transformed economic and political structures, promulgated new conceptions and representations of the nation, and deeply polarized the Argentine populace. Yet until now, most scholarship on Peronism has been constrained by a narrow, top-down perspective. Inspired by the pioneering work of the historian Daniel James and new approaches to Latin American cultural history, scholars have recently begun to rewrite the history of mid-twentieth-century Argentina. The New Cultural History of Peronism brings together the best of this important new scholarship. Situating Peronism within the broad arc of twentieth-century Argentine cultural change, the contributors focus on the interplay of cultural traditions, official policies, commercial imperatives, and popular perceptions. They describe how the Pern regime's rhetoric and representations helped to produce new ideas of national and collective identity. At the same time, they show how Argentines pursued their interests through their engagement with the Peronist project, and, in so doing, pushed the regime in new directions. While the volume's emphasis is on the first Pern presidency, one contributor explores the origins of the regime and two others consider Peronism's transformations in subsequent years. The essays address topics including mass culture and melodrama, folk music, pageants, social respectability, architecture, and the intense emotional investment inspired by Peronism. They examine the experiences of women, indigenous groups, middle-class anti-Peronists, internal migrants, academics, and workers. By illuminating the connections between the state and popular consciousness, The New Cultural History of Peronism exposes the contradictions and ambivalences that have characterized Argentine populism. Contributors: Anahi Ballent, Oscar Chamosa, Mara Damilakou, Eduardo Elena, Matthew B. Karush, Diana Lenton, Mirta Zaida Lobato, Natalia Milanesio, Mariano Ben Plotkin, Csar Seveso, Lizel Tornay
The New Custodians of the State: Programmatic Elites in French Society
by William GenieysThe New Custodians of the State uses contemporary France to reassess sociological theories of political and policymaking elites. Based on detailed case studies drawn from social policy and national defense sectors, it concludes that a new type of sectorally-based elite has risen to prominence in France since the 1980s. Genieys suggests that programmatic elites found in specific policy sectors, made up of individuals linked both by common career paths and the resulting skills and expertise, should be seen as new guardians of state power.Like their technocratic predecessors, programmatic elites maintain a high degree of independence with respect to electoral politics and to civil society; like them, they share an ideological commitment to protect and expand the role of the state in French society. Unlike them, however, these new guardians of the state are structured around specific policy programs and limited in scope to a given sector. Competition among programmatic elites at the highest levels of the state emerges as the chief driving force behind innovation for social change.The New Custodians of the State introduces programmatic elites both as real-world actors and as an analytic category and highlights the limits of elite power by analyzing the defeat of efforts by the French Ministry of Defense. This book presents a thought-provoking critical case study that suggests that models presenting either a single unified state elite or those that herald or decry the demise of the state require modification. The work will be of interest to students and scholars of France, and its society and government as well as anyone interested in the policymaking process in other countries with respect to domestic policy or national defense.
The New Deal & Modern American Conservatism: A Defining Rivalry
by Gordon Lloyd David DavenportProviding an often-overlooked historical perspective, Gordon Lloyd and David Davenport show how the New Deal of the 1930s established the framework for today's U.S. domestic policy and the ongoing debate between progressives and conservatives. They examine the pivotal issues of the dispute, laying out the progressive-conservative arguments between Hoover and Roosevelt in the 1930s and illustrating how those issues remain current in public policy today. The authors detail how Hoover, alarmed by the excesses of the New Deal, pointed to the ideas that would constitute modern U.S. conservatism and how three pillars—liberty, limited government, and constitutionalism—formed his case against the New Deal and, in turn, became the underlying philosophy of conservatism today. Illustrating how the debates between Franklin Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover were conducted much like the campaign rhetoric of liberals and conservatives in 2012, Lloyd and Davenport assert that conservatives must, to be a viable part of the national conversation, “go back to come back”—because our history contains signposts for the way forward.
The New Deal And The Problem Of Monopoly: A Study in Economic Ambivalence
by Ellis W. HawleyThe massive depression of the 1930's detonated the crisis between harsh reality and the vision of material abundance and economic security created by the American industrial order. Amid widespread poverty there was increasing concentration of economic power and loss of individual initiative. Professor Hawley traces the pattern of this conflict. He analyzes the National Recovery Administration, the sources and nature of the antitrust ideology, the rise of Keynesianism, the confusion within the Roosevelt Administration during the recession of 1937-38, and the government career of Thurman Arnold. Attention is given to the administrators of the New Deal and to the beliefs, pressures, and symbols that affected their policy decisions. How and why these ideas and pressures produced policies that were economically inconsistent yet politically workable is also explained.
The New Deal as a Triumph of Social Work: Frances Perkins and the Confluence of Early Twentieth Century Social Work with Mid-Twentieth Century Politics and Government
by S. MillerThe New Deal as a Triumph of Social Work concerns the 'hand' the New Deal plays from the perspective of early American History in which government and business cooperation is assumed and economic rights are addressed collectively whereas political rights are considered individually. The New Deal reconfigures this 'ratio' of rights by folding 'social work' into the aims of government. Miller describes the vital part Frances Perkins and her personal history play in this development.
The New Deal as a Triumph of Social Work: Frances Perkins and the Confluence of Early Twentieth Century Social Work with Mid-Twentieth Century Politics and Government
by Stephen Paul MillerThe New Deal as a Triumph of Social Work
The New Deal's Forest Army: How the Civilian Conservation Corps Worked (How Things Worked)
by Benjamin F. AlexanderHow the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed, rejuvenated, and protected American forests and parks at the height of the Great Depression.Propelled by the unprecedented poverty of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established an array of massive public works programs designed to provide direct relief to America’s poor and unemployed. The New Deal’s most tangible legacy may be the Civilian Conservation Corps’s network of parks, national forests, scenic roadways, and picnic shelters that still mark the country’s landscape. CCC enrollees, most of them unmarried young men, lived in camps run by the Army and worked hard for wages (most of which they had to send home to their families) to preserve America’s natural treasures. In The New Deal’s Forest Army, Benjamin F. Alexander chronicles how the corps came about, the process applicants went through to get in, and what jobs they actually did. He also explains how the camps and the work sites were run, how enrollees spent their leisure time, and how World War II brought the CCC to its end. Connecting the story of the CCC with the Roosevelt administration’s larger initiatives, Alexander describes how FDR’s policies constituted a mixed blessing for African Americans who, even while singled out for harsh treatment, benefited enough from the New Deal to become an increasingly strong part of the electorate behind the Democratic Party. The CCC was the only large-scale employment program whose existence FDR foreshadowed in speeches during the 1932 campaign—and the dearest to his heart throughout the decade that it lasted. Alexander reveals how the work itself left a lasting imprint on the country’s terrain as the enrollees planted trees, fought forest fires, landscaped public parks, restored historic battlegrounds, and constructed dams and terraces to prevent floods. A uniquely detailed exploration of life in the CCC, The New Deal’s Forest Army compellingly demonstrates how one New Deal program changed America and gave birth to both contemporary forestry and the modern environmental movement.
The New Deal's War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance
by David T. BeitoSpying on citizens. Censoring critics. Imprisoning minorities. These are the acts of dictators, not American presidents.... Or are they?The legacy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt enjoys regular acclaim from historians, politicians, and educators. Lauded for his New Deal policies, leadership as a wartime president, cozy fireside chats, and groundbreaking support of the &“forgotten man,&” FDR, we have been told, is worthy of the same praise as men like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.... But is that true? Does the father of today&’s welfare state really deserve such generous approbation? Or is there a dark side to this golden legacy? The New Deal&’s War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR&’s Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance unveils a much different portrait than the standard orthodoxy found in today&’s historical studies. Deploying an abundance of primary source evidence and well-reasoned arguments, historian and distinguished professor emeritus David T. Beito masterfully presents a complete account of the real Franklin D. Roosevelt: a man who abused power, violated human rights, targeted dissidents, and let his crude racism imprison American citizens merely for being of Japanese descent. Read it, and discover how FDR: shamelessly censored critics of his administration, barred them from the public square, destroyed their careers, and even bankrupted them when possible; locked up Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps built on American soil; sowed the seeds of today&’s out-of-control surveillance state; and much, much more... Here is an all too rare portrait of a man who changed the course of American history ... not for the better. Read it, and you&’ll never view the fireside president the same again.
The New Deal: A Global History (America in the World)
by Kiran Klaus PatelThe first history of the new deal in global contextThe New Deal: A Global History provides a radically new interpretation of a pivotal period in US history. The first comprehensive study of the New Deal in a global context, the book compares American responses to the international crisis of capitalism and democracy during the 1930s to responses by other countries around the globe—not just in Europe but also in Latin America, Asia, and other parts of the world. Work creation, agricultural intervention, state planning, immigration policy, the role of mass media, forms of political leadership, and new ways of ruling America's colonies—all had parallels elsewhere and unfolded against a backdrop of intense global debates.By avoiding the distortions of American exceptionalism, Kiran Klaus Patel shows how America's reaction to the Great Depression connected it to the wider world. Among much else, the book explains why the New Deal had enormous repercussions on China; why Franklin D. Roosevelt studied the welfare schemes of Nazi Germany; and why the New Dealers were fascinated by cooperatives in Sweden—but ignored similar schemes in Japan.Ultimately, Patel argues, the New Deal provided the institutional scaffolding for the construction of American global hegemony in the postwar era, making this history essential for understanding both the New Deal and America's rise to global leadership.
The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II
by Thomas J. FlemingTom Fleming takes the reader on a journey through the fractious struggles and debates that went on in Washington and the world as the New Dealers, led by F. D. Roosevelt, strove to impose their will on the conduct of the War. He paints a controversial and very different portrait of FDR's leadership.
The New Dealers' War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the War Within World War II
by Thomas FlemingAcclaimed historian Thomas Fleming brings to life a flawed and troubled FDR struggling to manage World War II. Starting with the leak to the press of Roosevelt's famous Rainbow Plan, then spiraling back to FDR's inept prewar diplomacy with Japan and his various attempts to lure Japan into an attack on the U. S. Fleet in the Pacific, Fleming takes the reader on a journey through the incredibly fractious struggles and debates that went on in Washington, the nation, and the world as the New Dealers strove to impose their will on the conduct of the War. In bold contrast to the familiar, idealized FDR of other biographies, Fleming's Roosevelt is a man in remorseless decline, battered by ideological forces and primitive hatreds that he could not handle and frequently failed to understand, some of them leading to unimaginable catastrophe. Among FDR's most dismaying policies, Fleming argues, is his insistence on "unconditional surrender" for Germany (a policy that perhaps prolonged the war by as much as two years, leaving millions more dead) and his often-uncritical embrace of and acquiescence to Stalin and the Soviets as an ally. The New Dealers' War is one of those rare books that force readers to rethink what they think they know about a pivotal event in the American past.