ScanningWWII.com
ScanningWWII's WWII Store
  • 599 items in the WWII Store

  • Show listings by category...

WWII Store ( main )
Rate this post

Those Angry Days:

Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941

Paperback (576 pages), kindle, audiobook
The debate over American intervention in WWII was a bitter clash of personalities and ideas that divided the nation and ultimately determined the fate of the free world.

Those Angry Days:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the acclaimed author of Citizens of London comes the definitive account of the debate over American intervention in World War II—a bitter, sometimes violent clash of personalities and ideas that divided the nation and ultimately determined the fate of the free world.

At the center of this controversy stood the two most famous men in America: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who championed the interventionist cause, and aviator Charles Lindbergh, who as unofficial leader and spokesman for America’s isolationists emerged as the president’s most formidable adversary. Their contest of wills personified the divisions within the country at large, and Lynne Olson makes masterly use of their dramatic personal stories to create a poignant and riveting narrative. While FDR, buffeted by political pressures on all sides, struggled to marshal public support for aid to Winston Churchill’s Britain, Lindbergh saw his heroic reputation besmirched—and his marriage thrown into turmoil—by allegations that he was a Nazi sympathizer.

Spanning the years 1939 to 1941, Those Angry Days vividly re-creates the rancorous internal squabbles that gripped the United States in the period leading up to Pearl Harbor. After Germany vanquished most of Europe, America found itself torn between its traditional isolationism and the urgent need to come to the aid of Britain, the only country still battling Hitler. The conflict over intervention was, as FDR noted, “a dirty fight,” rife with chicanery and intrigue, and Those Angry Days recounts every bruising detail. In Washington, a group of high-ranking military officers, including the Air Force chief of staff, worked to sabotage FDR’s pro-British policies. Roosevelt, meanwhile, authorized FBI wiretaps of Lindbergh and other opponents of intervention. At the same time, a covert British operation, approved by the president, spied on antiwar groups, dug up dirt on congressional isolationists, and planted propaganda in U.S. newspapers.

The stakes could not have been higher. The combatants were larger than life. With the immediacy of a great novel, Those Angry Days brilliantly recalls a time fraught with danger when the future of democracy and America’s role in the world hung in the balance.

Praise for Those Angry Days

“In Those Angry Days, journalist-turned-historian Lynne Olson captures [the] period in a fast-moving, highly readable narrative punctuated by high drama. It’s . . . popular history at its most riveting, detailing what the author rightfully characterizes as ‘a brutal, no-holds-barred battle for the soul of the nation.’ It is sure to captivate readers seeking a deeper understanding of how public opinion gradually shifted as America moved from bystander to combatant in the war to preserve democracy.”—Associated Press

“Olson has shone a dramatic light on the complexities of the issue and skillfully portrayed the protagonists of an almost forgotten crisis in American history.”Newsweek/The Daily Beast

“[An] absorbing chronicle . . . [Olson] doesn’t so much revisit a historical period as inhabit it; her scenes flicker as urgently as a newsreel. While highlighting Lindbergh and FDR as its stars, Those Angry Days embraces a cast of characters far beyond the book’s title characters.” The Christian Science Monitor

Charles Lindbergh...

Related Scanning WWII links...

  • 17 Sep 39: Lindbergh makes his first anti-intervention radio speech
  • 24 Jan 41: Lindbergh testifies before House Committee that aid to Britain was a mistake
  • 23 Apr 41: Lindbergh again calls for the US to stay out of the war
  • 25 Apr 41: Roosevelt publicly calls Charles Lindbergh an appeaser, impugning his loyalty
  • 29 Apr 41: Lindbergh resigns from the US Army Reserves over FDR's verbal assault
  • 06 Dec 41: The day before Pearl Harbor, the America First Committee is at its zenith
  • 03 Apr 42: Lindbergh begins working on Ford's B-24 production line as a civilian adviser
  • 28 Jul 44: Lindbergh shoots down a Japanese plane in combat, still as a civilian adviser

Related WWII Store items...

  • Those Angry Days:
    Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941
  • Lindbergh vs Roosevelt:
    The Rivalry That Divided America

ScanningWWII.com

Rate this post
Scanning WWII is a project of the Arnett Institute, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, Mesa, Arizona © 2005—2024