America in the Forties

Ronald Allen Goldberg

Narrated by Fred Filbrich

Available from Audible

Book published by Syracuse University Press

In America in the Forties, Ronald Allen Goldberg energetically argues that the decade of the 1940s was one of the most influential in American history, a period marked by war, sacrifice, and profound social changes. With superb detail, Goldberg traces the entire decade from the first stirrings of war in a nation consumed by the Great Depression through the conflicts with Europe and Japan, to the start of the Cold War and the dawn of the atomic age. Richly drawn portraits of the period’s charismatic, brilliant, and often controversial leaders—Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Harry Truman—demonstrate their immense importance in shaping the era, and in turn, the course of American government, politics, and society. Goldberg chronicles US heroic accomplishments during World War II and the early Cold War, showing how these military and diplomatic achievements helped lay the foundation for the country’s current role in economic and military affairs worldwide.

Combining an engrossing narrative with intelligent analysis, America in the Forties enriches our understanding of that pivotal era.

Ronald Allen Goldberg is professor of history and chair of the History Department at Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, Virginia.

REVIEWS:

“The book provides invaluable background for understanding the current political landscape in which hot debates center on the federal government’s role in addressing both international and domestic crises. ”

—Maurine H. Beasley, University of Maryland, College Park