Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Joseph Lash’s last work is an account of the men and women who helped Roosevelt pull the country out of the Great Depression. When FDR took office in 1933, he set into motion the promise he made when he was first nominated: the New Deal, also called the Roosevelt Revolution, charged the energies and imaginations of some of the most brilliant minds in the country. Lash draws heavily on the private and unpublished papers of Thomas Corcoran and Benjamin Cohen, the two most influential brain trusters of the time, whose policies invigorated the nation and who, independently and together, were driven to promote the social and economic transformations of the thirties. “This ‘new look at the New Deal,’ as the book is subtitled,... [is] a history of New Deal legislation, from the banking bill that recast the Federal Reserve System, on through the Public Utility Holding Company Act, the Wagner Labor Relations Act, the Social Security Bill and the creation of the alphabetocracy that, as Mr. Lash believes, helped to shift control of the American economy from Wall Street to Washington... a dual biography of two young New Deal lawyers, Benjamin V. Cohen and Thomas G. Corcoran... a roster of New Deal players — Adolph A. Berle, William O. Douglas, Marriner Eccles, Jerome Frank, Leon Henderson, Alger Hiss, Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Hugh S. Johnson, James Landis, Max Lowenthal, Isador Lubin, Raymond Moley, Frances Perkins, Joseph Rauh, Samuel I. Rosenman and Rexford G. Tugwell [and] Harvard Law professor (and later Supreme Court Justice) Felix Frankfurter... the ideological struggle that went on between people like Tugwell, who wanted to plan the economy, and those like Frankfurter and Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who wanted to break up the trusts and restore freedom to the marketplace. Dealers and Dreamers will be valuable to any reader with certain specific questions about the New Deal in mind.” — Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times “Dealers and Dreamers is a fascinating, informative book, indispensable for students of the Roosevelt presidency.” — Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The New York Review of Books “The story of how our present-day institutions were created... [Lash’s] excellent exploitation of the papers of both Cohen and Corcoran, plus judicious use of interviews, makes this a valuable work.” — Warren F. Kimball, Los Angeles Times “Joseph P. Lash’s last book is a fitting capstone to a noble career. Dealers and Dreamers is a vivid evocation of an era and a fascinating portrait, written with the skill of a master, of some of the most wonderfully engaging figures of a glorious age in American history. But more than that, it is — like all of Joe Lash’s books, and like Joe Lash’s life itself — a work of the most rare sincerity and integrity. What shines forth from every page — as it shines forth from Mr. Lash’s life — is his unshakable determination to be truthful, honest and scrupulously fair. Joe has always been the standard of integrity to which I tried to hold fast, and this book is a final, triumphant example of the fact that he held that standard high to the last.” — Robert Caro “I found Dealers and Dreamers a veritable treasure trove of historical information about Roosevelt’s Washington. For that reason alone it is an important book.” — Thomas Fleming “Dealers and Dreamers not only reports the achievements and operations of the New Deal, but also the spirit of the participants, a spirit which I think was very much like that which must have existed among the persons who drafted the U.S. Constitution and put it in force — in each case, reflecting the excitement and satisfaction of participating in a successful revolution, not against government but for government.” — Eugene McCarthy “By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Eleanor and Franklin, this is a fresh and admiring look at the original ‘brain trusters’ (Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, Adolf Berle) and others crucial to the legislated social transformation presided over by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression years. Among the ‘others’ Lash pays particular attention to are Thomas G. Corcoran, ‘the unofficial whip of the New Deal,’ and Benjamin V. Cohen, principal draftsman of several ground-breaking bills sent to Congress. The author describes Cohen as the intellectual coordinator of the New Deal and the keeper of its conscience. Working from Corcoran and Cohen’s private papers, he sheds light on the significance of the Securities Exchange Act, FDR’s court-packing attempt, the 1936 presidential campaign, the effect of the New Deal on black Americans and other issues throughout the decade before Pearl Harbor.” — Publishers Weekly “Lash focuses on two talented technocrats — Benjamin V. Cohen and Thomas C. Corcoran, protégés of Felix Frankfurter, then a professor at Harvard Law School. Though neither had held high office, both played important, frequently pivotal, roles in drafting and ensuring passage of vital New Deal measures like the Securities Exchange Act of 1934... Pragmatists as well as idealists, Cohen and Corcoran viewed politics as the art of the possible. With revolution a decided possibility, they opted for trial-and-error reform as the best means to the end of preserving any vestige of a free-enterprise, constitutional system.” — Kirkus Reviews “Lash has written an absorbing narrative that captures the spirit of those yeasty times when a heady generation of young intellectuals was ready to roll up its sleeves to rescue America.” — R. Frank Saunders, Jr., The Georgia Historical Quarterly “Dealers and Dreamers conveys an unmistakable sense that there was something special about the experience of the generation of lawyers who entered public service in the 1930’s.” — G. Edward White, Harvard Law Review

The Great Depression and the New Deal. For generations, the collective American consciousness has believed that the former ruined the country and the latter saved it. Endless praise has been heaped upon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for masterfully reining in the Depression’s destructive effects and propping up the country on his New Deal platform. In fact, FDR has achieved mythical status in American history and is considered to be, along with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents of all time. But would the Great Depression have been so catastrophic had the New Deal never been implemented? In FDR’s Folly, historian Jim Powell argues that it was in fact the New Deal itself, with its shortsighted programs, that deepened the Great Depression, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly. You’ll discover in alarming detail how FDR’s federal programs hurt America more than helped it, with effects we still feel today, including: • How Social Security actually increased unemployment • How higher taxes undermined good businesses • How new labor laws threw people out of work • And much more This groundbreaking book pulls back the shroud of awe and the cloak of time enveloping FDR to prove convincingly how flawed his economic policies actually were, despite his good intentions and the astounding intellect of his circle of advisers. In today’s turbulent domestic and global environment, eerily similar to that of the 1930s, it’s more important than ever before to uncover and understand the truth of our history, lest we be doomed to repeat it.

In the 1830s, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville warned that "insufferable despotism" would prevail if America ever acquired a national administrative state. Today's Tea Partiers evidently believe that, after a great wrong turn in the early twentieth century, Tocqueville's nightmare has come true. In those years, it seems, a group of radicals, seduced by alien ideologies, created vast bureaucracies that continue to trample on individual freedom. In Tocqueville's Nightmare, Daniel R. Ernst destroys this ahistorical and simplistic narrative. He shows that, in fact, the nation's best corporate lawyers were among the creators of "commission government" that supporters were more interested in purging government of corruption than creating a socialist utopia, and that the principles of individual rights, limited government, and due process were built into the administrative state. Far from following "un-American" models, American state-builders rejected the leading European scheme for constraining government, the Rechtsstaat (a state of rules). Instead, they looked to an Anglo-American tradition that equated the rule of law with the rule of courts and counted on judges to review the bases for administrators' decisions. Soon, however, even judges realized that strict judicial review shifted to courts decisions best left to experts. The most masterful judges, including Charles Evans Hughes, Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941, ultimately decided that a "day in court" was unnecessary if individuals had already had a "day in commission" where the fundamentals of due process and fair play prevailed. This procedural notion of the rule of law not only solved the judges' puzzle of reconciling bureaucracy and freedom. It also assured lawyers that their expertise in the ways of the courts would remain valuable, and professional politicians that presidents would not use administratively distributed largess as an independent source of political power. Tocqueville's nightmare has not come to pass. Instead, the American administrative state is a restrained and elegant solution to a thorny problem, and it remains in place to this day.

Examines the purposes of political parties in America's constitutional order, each major party's strongest recent manifestation and the future of the American party system.

Hope and History is both a memoir and a call-to-action for the renewal of faith in democracy and America. US Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel presents his most important public speeches and writings, compiled and presented over eight decades of adventure and public service, woven together with anecdotes of his colorful life as a second-generation American, a soldier, a lawyer, a political activist, and a diplomat. He touches upon themes that resonate as much today as they did when he first encountered them: the impact of heroes and mentors; the tragedy of the Vietnam War; the problems of racism and desegregation in America; tackling the crisis in America's prisons; America and the Holocaust; and the plight and promise of the United Nations. Along the way, he allows us to share his journey with some of the great characters of American history: Eleanor Roosevelt, William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan, President John F. Kennedy and RFK, Harry S. Truman, and Jimmy Carter. Throughout, vanden Heuvel persuades us that there is still room for optimism in public life. He shows how individuals, himself among them, have tackled some of America's most intractable domestic and foreign policy issues with ingenuity and goodwill, particularly under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and those who sought and still seek to follow in his footsteps. He is not afraid to challenge the hatred and bigotry that are an unfortunate but undeniable part of the American fabric. He exhorts us to embrace all the challenges and opportunities that life in the United States can offer.

Born in 1882 in New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered public service through the encouragement of the Democratic Party and won the election to the New York Senate in 1910. This book details his administration at the height of the Great Depression as he valiantly led the nation with the phrase, The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

A key figure in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, Benjamin V. Cohen (1894–1983) was a major architect of public policy from the first days of FDR’s presidency through the early days of the Cold War. Although he kept a low public profile, Cohen’s influence extended across a wide range of domestic and foreign policy initiatives. In this biography, William Lasser offers the first account of Ben Cohen’s life and career, and an assessment of his contribution to the origin and development of modern American liberalism. Cohen’s life provides an extraordinary lens through which to view the development of the evolving political philosophy of the Roosevelt and Truman presidencies. A brilliant lawyer noted for his good judgment and experience, Cohen was a leading member of FDR’s “Brain Trust,” developing ideas, drafting legislation, lobbying within the administration and in Congress, and defending the New Deal in court. The book traces his contributions to domestic financial policy, his activities during the war years in London and Washington, his service as counselor to the State Department and member of the American delegation to the United Nations after the war, and his role in the American Zionist movement. From Cohen’s life and work, Lasser draws important insights into the development of the New Deal and the evolution of postwar liberalism.