Rating: 
Summary: Sweeping, compelling narrative...
Review: A broad scoped and scholarly account of the Great Depression and the period up to and including World War II. Kennedy makes what at first would appear to be a monumental task seem effortless and proves that history on this scale can be told in lucid, well written text. The story of the 1929 Stock Market collapse is clearly and concisely explained in sort of "laymen's" terms (the politically correct way of saying "for the economically dumb"...like me)and he proves that this was not the sole cause of the ensuing "Great Depression" (the excesses of the 1920's were at least as culpable). FDR's New Deal policies and effects make up many chapters and I liked the way that Kennedy was able to take the discussion from a detailed policy forum to how it then affected the common person. We get plenty of "context" in terms of the everyday person/family and how they were affected by all the New Deal programs (some in exhaustive detail...). At the same time, we're kept in touch with events in Europe and how the American "isolationist" foreign policy was a factor in Hitler's and Mussolini's initial reign of terror. Also, the American pre-war relationship with Great Britian discloses (for me) many new surprises as we see the large influence that Churchill had initially over FDR. The war battles and strategy are summarized extremely well and, again, Kennedy is able to effortlessly go from detailed battle discussions to how it's effects were felt on the home-front...in fact one of my favorite chapters is titled "The Homefront Cauldron" where we see the industrial buildup, the effect of the fast growing economy on both the general public (more jobs) and the government and a marvelous discussion on the making of the first Atomic Weapon. The chapter dealing with the end of the war seemed a bit hurried but is made up for in the Epilouge where Kennedy summarizes the whole "post-war" affect on the ensuing generation(s). In the final analysis, this is history on a grand scale and serves the Oxford History Series well as a comprehensive study for this era and deserves the Pulitzer (won in 2000 for history) and to be read widely by all interested in the Depression and WWII. High recommendation.
Rating: 
Summary: At once, sweeping and intimate
Review: This is the definitive history of the most challenging period in American history since the Civil War. David Kennedy's history is a portrait of a resilient people weathering economic havoc and surviving to find themselves in a war to save civilization itself. "Freedom From Fear" is a rare survey history that manages to be a page-turner. By the end of the book, the United States has matured into the preeminent world power, but American society has yet to face up to its deepest failings.In addition to a sweeping history, Professor Kennedy gives the reader a sensitive biography of Herbert Hoover, the right man to serve the country as president but in power at the wrong time. Also, his portraits of the heroes and knaves of the Depression and World War II eras are always revealing and compelling.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterwork by a Master Historian
Review: It is not often that one has the privilege of reading a historical masterpiece. David M. Kennedy's Freedom From Fear affords us that rare opportunity. This is one of those unique histories which transcends its genre, becoming at once art and literature behind the unseen hand of the master storyteller. The very attempt to write of America in the transformative years 1929-1945 would daunt the greatest writers. The wonder of this achievement is that it so elegantly and lucidly tells the story, with such apparent ease, of two great wars -- the Great Depression and World War II. Most importantly Kennedy throughout maintains his ultimate perspective - the American people, the highest and the most 'ordinary', shown against the backdrop of enormously complex domestic and international events. If you want to learn (and teach, as I do) about this period of enormous upheaval in 20th century America, this is the book. To the specifics. Kennedy in his prologue places the major players in their respective, middling stations on November 11, 1918: Lance Corporal Hitler in hospital; munitions minister Churchill staring at Big Ben chiming 11:00; commissar Stalin "dealing" with counterrevolutionaries; Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt awakening to a riotous din of celebration. Kennedy tells us Hoover's official theory of the Depression: "The primary cause of the Great Depression was the war of 1914-1918." But Kennedy wisely notes that the Depression was sui generis, "thus far [resisting] comprehensive explanation". Then in a lightning succession of almost breathtaking chapters, Kennedy gives us just that. He leads us through the fateful years with exhaustive unobtrusive scholarship, tinged at times with irony, mostly tempered with empathy. One cannot read this book and not feel a reverence for this land and its people, as the author undoubtedly intended. Though the facts pour forth furiously, we glide through them, rendered as they are into good old plain English. As we progress through each chapter, the suspense builds unfailingly toward a dramatic, sometimes breathless, climax. This is a whale of a page-turner. Thus, for example, "an epidemic of failures flashed through the banking system" and the "suspension of the Bank of the United States represented the largest bank failure in American history...[holding] the savings of some 400,000 persons." Then at the end of the chapter, "Panic": "In short order, what was still in 1931 called the depression was about to become the unprecedented calamity known to history as the Great Depression." Hoover, in 1928 "the most competent man in America, maybe in the world", did everything wrong. FDR, "master reconciler" coined the simple phrase that would give a name to an era, "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people." Nobody knew what it meant. More apt, perhaps, was his exhortation to "above all, try something." Thus, the hundred days of furious activity in the capital, while the nation continued to fall precipitously into the brink. A cartoon showed a farmer shaking the hand of a tall, erect, standing FDR: "Yes, you remembered me." But it was of course the war that 'saved' the farmer and in fact the world. The second half of the book takes us through World War II with remarkable insight into the key diplomatic, geopolitical and military events that shaped its ends. While "America slid back into its historic attitude of isolationism", Hitler "feared nothing from the United States." While Chamberlain parroted "peace in our time", Churchill fulminated that "this is only the beginning of the reckoning." But while America was becoming "the great arsenal of democracy", in FDR's words, the Great Depression began to end. Kennedy again shows an uncanny talent for placing the specific into the context of the great. In 1937, he notes, "America turned out 4.8 million cars, Japan 26,000." The importance? In Stalin's words, "the most important things in this war are machines....The United States...is a country of machines." Kennedy condemns the perfidy of the disaster at Pearl Harbor, but rightly places it in its broader context as "systemic, pervasive...embedded in a tangle of only partially thought-out strategic assumptions...colored by smug attitudes of racial superiority." The drug-addicted Hitler is not informed of D-Day until noon. Such details, running throughout the book, bring to mind Richard III's kingdom for a horse, juxtaposing the small against the large, leading to disaster (some for us, most for 'them'). Due respect is finally accorded the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an all-Japanese (segregated) unit that conspicuously distinguished itself, while Americans of Japanese ancestry were interned at home in concentration camps, again a touch of the great empathy of the author for often forgotten Americans. Finally, the striking photos are integral to the theme of the American in the time of his greatest trial. Standing alone, they expose much of the history Kennedy explains. The cheering mobs in Philadelphia on November 11, 1918; a "we cater to white trade only" sign; a vast breadline in New York; "Okies" in California; Hoover's pursed lips and narrowed eyes as he sits uncomfortably next to FDR; FDR speaking to a North Dakota farmer from his open car; Ford goons breaking a strike; FDR with brain trusters Ickes, Wallace, Hopkins; the demagogues Long, Lewis, Coughlin; Hitler giving a Nazi salute with a smug Goering below him. The war photos are equally evocative, a Marine's face at Palau; Ike speaking to men on the eve of D-Day, "fearing that he was sending most of these men to their deaths"; Buchenwald; "Little Boy"; and Churchill, Truman and Stalin smiling with hands clasped at Potsdam. In sum, if there is any book you should read about this monumental era, it is this book.
Rating:
Summary: An authentic picture of a crucial period in history.
Review: David Kennedy captures the whole sweep of the momentous events of the 30s and early 40s and gives the reader a thorough immersion in the lives, the trials, and the attitudes of Americans who lived through that era. This is more than just a book of facts. As one who was born and grew up during those troubled times, I renewed many memories as I read, but I also gained new insights into the background of the events that shaped a new world. Perhaps the passage that impressed me most is Kennedy's evaluation of the real legacy of Roosevelt's New Deal. No, it did not really end the depression, and it was hardly the political triumph that most people seem to imagine today. But it did make giant steps in achieving what the book's title indicates: Freedom from Fear, as government began to play a more direct part in the personal lives of Americans--to some extent leveling the playing field for those without the advantages of wealth and birth. Overall this is a monumental work, well-written, intelligent, and comprehensive. I recommend it highly to anyone who really wants to understand the Depression and war years.
Rating:
Summary: Best History of Modern America
Review: The latest book in the superb Oxford History of the United States cost me a lot of sleep. Even cigarettes were never this addictive. 'Freedom From Fear' is a long book, but I wanted one twice the length. I wanted more of Kennedy's gentle but affecting prose style, and I wanted much longer in the company of his roving eye and sharp mind. I wanted more of these chapters that moved so easily from thumbnail sketches of men like Roosevelt or MacArthur, through affecting descriptions of starving families in Appalachia experiencing the sharp end of the Depression, to gripping narratives of wartime events that will have you steaming along with the Atlantic convoys, awaiting the next U-Boat attack. It is a book that mixes the sheer pleasure of historical narrative with the analysis of themes and processes we expect from a Stanford historian, and a book that rightly revels in the excitement and pathos of America in this period, a period in which America leaps from the Gilded Age to the Nuclear Age in a series of painful, tragic and heroic bounds. There are subjects on which one would have liked to have seen more - women, popular culture, economic history, finance and industry - but these are quibbles. The book, like the period, is dominated by three great themes - the suffering of the 1930s, the trauma and triumph of war, and the extraordinary personality and power of the man who lifted America through both, Franklin Roosevelt. It is a measure of Kennedy's brilliance that we finish this book feeling as though we have seen America as much through the eyes of the crippled Machiavellian aristocrat, as through those of the scared young conscript crouching in a foxhole on Guam. If you care about America, you must read this.
Rating:
Summary: A perfect blend
Review: Prof. Kennedy accomplished something remarkable by providing a meticulously detailed history that is also an extraordinarily entertaining read. Regardless of how many books about the depression and WWII you may have read you are sure to find something new here. The linkages in the chain of historical events are very clearly described. In addition, the enormous number of characters that played an important role in these events are described with vitually no disruption to the narrative flow. This is a book that could serve as a text but also has great appeal for the general reader.
Rating:
Summary: It reads well and challenges some ideas.
Review: I enjoyed this book very much. It manages to strike a good balance between thematic discussions of trends, narratives of arguments and battles, and portraits of the colorful characters involved along the way. The greatest flaw in the book is that it needs editing. Stories are repeated in numerous places, and the wording can sometimes be vague or clunky. It really makes me wonder about what level of polish is needed to get a Pulitzer. No doubt the Pulitzer folks felt as I did that these occasional flaws are ultimately irrelevant compared the quality of the rest of the work. Prof. Kennedy is not afraid of taking opinions. I viewed this a large plus because it forced me to challenge some of my own notions about the period, but some folks who don't like their ideas challenged may find this infuriating. Fortunately, the professor's ideas are not ideological knee-jerks and are generally quite nuanced. I would like to defend the book against some criticism that has been levelled against it in these reviews and others: - I did not feel that the book was "anti-FDR" or "pro-FDR". The picture painted of Roosevelt is complex. The author obviously approves of many of the New Deal programs and their effects early in the Depression and the post-war years, but he certainly acknowledges their potential for abuse and corruption and the fact well into 1937 Roosevelt still had a depression on his hands. Opinions on FDR's political style and foreign policy are painted from a broad palette. FDR is the central player in this book, and he receives an extensive, well-rounded treatment. - The book is not "pro-Stalin". Because this is a book on American history, Stalin is not a figure of much attention, not like Roosevelt or Churchill. He is largely treated as an unstable, threatening and foreign force to be dealt with gingerly by Roosevelt and Churchill who did not have an army to match the size of the Russian's. Although they are not dwelled upon, Stalin's brutal ways (such as his massacre of the Poles) are not ignored. - Prof. Kennedy did not accuse the Americans of being "too hard on the meek Japanese". The picture of the Imperial Japanese Army is one of brutal psychotics with the occasional doubter unable to turn around a policy of suicide. Moreover, much attention is paid to the atrocities of the Japanese (actually, substantially more than is paid to the Holocaust). Kennedy's criticism of LeMay's bombing policy is legitimate debate, and the tales of Americans killing Japanese survivors are told in the context that many Japanese wounded would rather kill American medics than be captured. - Despite what was said in a careless and dishonest newspaper column by one George Will, this book is not "revisionist" nor should it be avoided by patriotic Americans. Mr. Will's assassination attempt selected a single paragraph detailing negative developments of the war, out of a chapter on its positive effects and the jubilance of post-war America, and used that isolated paragraph to "prove" this was some kind of revisionist, America-hating book. That is not the case, and Mr. Will's column was not only narrow minded, but dishonest. I fear I might have give the impression that this book is a soapbox. It is not. For the most part, it is a lively story about the struggles that remade America into the one we know, and the lives of the great and small Americans who were there. They were entitled to their opinions, and Professor Kennedy is entitled to his. That discussion makes everything all the livelier.
Rating: 
Summary: Grand, but ultimately disappointing
Review: After looking at all the extremely positive views of Freedom From Fear, it is with some trepidation that I offer some negative comments. This is a book that I really looked forward to reading and wanted very much to like. On the positive side, I must state that I learned a great deal, particularly about the depression, that I did not know. And I also certainly admire Dr. Kennedy for tackling such a massive project and condensing the results into a single volume. But therein, I think, lay the seeds of some of the difficulties. Specifically, I have three problems with it. First, because he is trying to cover so much, the book ends up being just a broad survey and, of necessity, omits too much, and places too much reliance on secondary sources. This is probably inevitable considering the scope of the project and the vast literature available. Each chapter covers a particular theme, which makes the book look like a series of lectures or articles, rather than a unified whole. Second, the book badly needed a good editing before publication. There are two problems here. The first is that stories are repeated, almost verbatim, in different chapters, and occasionally even within a single chapter. The second is that, in the areas with which I am familiar, I found numerous factual errors. To cite just three, at the battle of the Philippine Sea it was not Raymond Spruance, commander of the Fifth Fleet, who ordered the lights turned on for the returning aircraft, but Marc Mitscher, commander of the carrier groups. Again, it was not Thomas Kinkaid, commander of the Seventh Fleet, who "crossed the T" at Surigao Strait, but rather Jesse Oldendorf, who commanded the battleships and other fire support ships. But my favorite is the photo caption which refers to the horizontal stabilizer in the tail assembly of a B-17 as its "rear wing". If I'm able to spot these errors in areas with which I'm familiar, it makes me wonder about how many there may be in areas with which I'm not familiar. My last criticism is the most important, and that deals with the tone of the book. As a couple of reviewers have mentioned, the author is negative about nearly everyone in the cast of characters, most especially about Roosevelt and Churchill. (Among the exceptions are Truman (who comes in only at the very end), Hopkins, and, most peculiarly, Stalin.) I suspect the problem may be that Dr. Kennedy is just too far removed from the events he describes. Everyone knew that Roosevelt and Churchill had faults and made mistakes. But they have to be viewed in the true context in which they lived and operated. They were both heroic figures who did the best they could in situations that few have ever experienced or could handle. ...
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional and Extraordinary
Review: A complete and accurate rendering of American society and the trends that the Depression and the War had on everyday life for the masses. Throughout the book there are very detailed and colorful explanations that make this the must have for anyone who wants to know how typical Americans thought and behaved during the Roosevelt era. This book is a masterpiece and is the defining work for this particular era.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing Tale of America
Review: Non-fiction can be more engrossing than fiction, and this book is a good example, taking you from the height of American prosperity (for most people) to the depths of Depression, to even greater economic prosperity. The book's earlier chapters are particularly enlightening, adding a new perspective and appreciation for President Hoover, who actually did try to solve the Depression, but lacked the political skill to break away from his rigid thoughts of what government should do. I can't give the book five stars, however, because it gets bogged down in the World War Two chapters. The book is subtitled "The American People in Depression and War," but it loses that focus on the average American for too many chapters. There are other engaging books on the military and political aspects of World War Two written over the last few years (the works of Ambrose, for example.) Kennedy's finest chapters are those looking at the Homefront. More time should have been spent on that aspect as opposed to telling the story of planning for Overlord or Yalta. Other books tell that story.
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