Nothing to Fear brings to life a fulcrum moment in American history—the tense, feverish first one hundred days of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, at the very height of the Great Depression. In vivd prose, bestselling author Adam Cohen charts how DFR swept away the old order and launched the New Deal, forever reinventing the role of the federal government.
As Cohen reveals, five fiercely intelligent, often clashing personalities presided over this transformation and pushed the president to embrace a bold solution. Nothing to Fear is the definitive portrait of the men and women who engineered the nation’s recovery from the worst economic crisis in American history.
Editorial Reviews
"Cohen's well-told story belies the cliche about legislation and sausage-making: his narrative is absorbing and enjoyable to read. Admirably game to tackle the heavy-going details of policy making, Nothing to Fearis nonetheless decidedly nonacademic…One might say it's the kind of history you would expect from a newspaper editorialist. —The New York Times Book Review
"Mr. Cohen…brings this brief but extraordinary period in American history to vivid life. An excellent writer and storyteller, he does so by concentrating not on its central figure, Roosevelt, but on a handful of his aides …Nothing to Fear is a fascinating account of an extraordinary moment in the life of the United States, indeed a page-turner." —The New York Times
"A valuable addition, a deeply sympathetic and thoroughly convincing portrait of FDR and five of his senior advisers that unearths how the aides' interactions with Roosevelt helped to spawn the New Deal." —The Washington Post
"A lucid, intelligent narrative as fast-paced as the hectic Hundred Days." —Los Angeles Times
About the Author
Adam Cohen is assistant editorial page editor of The New York Times, where he has been a member of the editorial board since 2002. He was previously a senior writer at Time and is the author of The Perfect Store: Inside eBay and a coauthor of American Pharaoh, a biography of Mayor Richard J. Daley. Before entering journalism, Cohen was an education-reform lawyer, and he has a law degree from Harvard.
