For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s

Event Details

Alonzo Hamby is Distinguished Professor of History at Ohio University. The following summary excerpt from his paper provides an overview of the talk: "Nationalism in policy reflected a misunderstanding of the Great Depression, which was an international problem that begged for international solutions. Nationalism in historical writing perpetuates the misunderstanding. The decade of the 1930s was the pivot of the twentieth century. The world experienced the rise of totalitarianism, the destruction of the post-World War order, and the beginning of a second World War. Economically, and arguably politically, the three most important nations in the world were the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. A look at the way in which all three faced the Depression provides a deeper understanding of the thirties than is possible with any single national story. It also provides a much better background against which to gauge Roosevelt’s achievement.