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�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). (less)

�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 (…more)