Fear Itself Paperback by Ira Katznelson

Product Details

• Publisher: Liveright (2014-03-18)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 720 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780871404503
• Item Weight: 567.0 grams
• Dimensions: 20.9 x 13.92 x 3.3 cm

“A powerful argument, swept along by Katznelson’s robust prose and the imposing scholarship that lies behind it.”—Kevin Boyle, New York Times Book Review

A work that “deeply reconceptualizes the New Deal and raises countless provocative questions” (David Kennedy), Fear Itself changes the ground rules for our understanding of this pivotal era in American history. Ira Katznelson examines the New Deal through the lens of a pervasive, almost existential fear that gripped a world defined by the collapse of capitalism and the rise of competing dictatorships, as well as a fear created by the ruinous racial divisions in American society. Katznelson argues that American democracy was both saved and distorted by a Faustian collaboration that guarded racial segregation as it built a new national state to manage capitalism and assert global power. Fear Itself charts the creation of the modern American state and “how a belief in the common good gave way to a central government dominated by interest-group politics and obsessed with national security” (Louis Menand, The New Yorker).

About the Author

Ira Katznelson is Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University and Deputy Director of Columbia World Projects. A former president of the American Political Science Association, he is the author of many celebrated books, including Fear Itself, winner of the Bancroft Prize in History.