The Defining Moment
FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

Name: The Defining Moment
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: Jonathan Alter
ISBN: 9781572707382

Author: Jonathan Alter

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Unabridged: 12 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Published: 12/01/2008

Categories: Nonfiction, History, Us History, Modern History, Biography & Autobiography, Political Biography, Political Science, American Government

Synopsis

In this dramatic and fascinating account, Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter shows how Franklin Delano Roosevelt used his first one hundred days in office to lift the country from the despair and paralysis of the Great Depression and transform the American presidency. Instead of becoming the dictator so many wanted in those first days, FDR rescued banks, put men to work immediately, and laid the groundwork for his most ambitious achievements, including what eventually became the Social Security Administration. Alter explains how FDR’s background and experiences uniquely qualified him to pull off an astonishing conjuring act that saved both democracy and capitalism.

About Jonathan Alter

Jonathan Alter is an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. He is a former senior editor and columnist for Newsweek, where he worked for twenty-eight years, writing more than fifty cover stories. He has also written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Vanity Fair, the New Republic, and other publications. He is the author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, both New York Times bestsellers, and Between the Lines, a collection of his Newsweek columns.

About Grover Gardner

AudioFile named Alexander Adams one of the Best Voices of the Century and now includes him in their annual Golden Voices roundup of top narration talent. He has recorded over 500 audiobooks. To date he has won eighteen of AudioFile's coveted Earphone Awards and one Audie Award.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Dick on April 02, 2010

This book will give you a view of why FDR was able to save Democracy and capitalism by his progressive reforms. This book puts you at the start of the depression and what FDR did to save America. Good reading in this time of Obama. The President has read this book and many of his Idea's are from the......more

Goodreads review by Steve on August 28, 2016

[URL not allowed] Jonathan Alter’s “The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope” was published in 2006. Alter is a journalist and author and was a columnist for Newsweek magazine for nearly thirty years. His most recent book “The Center Holds: Obama and His......more

Goodreads review by Shawn on May 07, 2019

I loved everything about this book but the title. The title should be different as it does not accurately describe this book, at least not in my opinion. Only the last section of this book describes FDR’s first hundred days in office. The rest describe the man himself and how he became the man he be......more

Goodreads review by Clif on May 01, 2010

Those of us alive now have a difficult time understanding the degree of fear and uncertainty felt by people in 1933 when the banks were closing and they had no idea what the future held. One had to live through the time to know how it felt. Even then, some people soon forgot and started complaining......more

Goodreads review by Eric on July 07, 2013

Enjoyable, light read with a pretty balanced assessment of FDR's strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and failures. The title is somewhat misleading because only the final third or quarter of the book is really about the first 100 days of his presidency. The rest is biographical and sets up the Depres......more

Quotes

“Alter’s account has a refreshing buoyancy, not unlike its protagonist…describing Roosevelt’s missteps as honestly as his triumphs, it succeeds in bringing a remarkable man back to life.”
New York Times Book Review

“Most Americans believe Roosevelt was a great man and a great president. Alter shows us that in the end magnificent rhetoric and action do not always bring concrete results.”
Washington Post

“A book like this, revealing the power of presidential speeches, should be read—in FDR’s repetition for emphasis—’again and again and again.’”
William Safire

“Jonathan Alter’s The Defining Moment is an extraordinarily vivid account of a remarkable moment in American history. It is also a rich and perceptive examination of how Franklin Roosevelt transformed the presidency. This book should be of interest to everyone who cares about the New Deal, and also to everyone who wants to understand the character of American politics.”
Alan Brinkley, author of The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War

“In The Defining Moment, one of the shrewdest political observers of our time turns his spotlight on the man who may have been the ablest American politician of all time.”
Geoffrey C. Ward, author of Before the Trumpet and A First-Class Temperament

“The Defining Moment is a riveting account of the first hundred days of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. Alter bewitches readers in this fast-moving story, often poignant, sometimes funny, of how Roosevelt changed the direction of American history.”
David Herbert Donald, author of Lincoln

“The Defining Moment should be required reading for every president, every student of leadership, and anyone who appreciates narrative history at its finest.”
Richard Norton Smith, author of An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover