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Susan Dunn is a professor of French literature and the history of ideas at Williams College. She is the author most recently of The Death of Louis XIV: Regicide & the French political Imagination. She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts. (Bowker Author Biography)

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Public Domain Pooh!

A fairly nothing story has Pooh waking up convinced today will be a great day, but then as he goes around with Piglet he gets stung and rained on and lands in a mud puddle. Being Pooh, he is able to find the silver lining in the end.

The dumbest part of the story has Pooh "getting dressed" in the morning while the illustrations all show Pooh to be a bare bear.

And the art is what really gets me though. Julia Gucevics has simply traced or copied many or most of the Pooh and Piglet figures throughout the book from Disney movie stills or clip art easily found on the internet. All she does to make it slightly different is to leave off Pooh's red shirt:


https://i.imgur.com/y1qfKlW.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/5HmwgoH.jpg

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... )
… (mer)
 
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villemezbrown | Jan 20, 2024 |
American presidents fortunate enough to enjoy two terms invariably find their second term more difficult than their first one, but if there was a president who could have bucked the trend it was Franklin Roosevelt. Enjoying one of the most massive reelection victories in history, he could claim a clear mandate from the voters, one reflected not just in his own overwhelming numbers but the enormous majorities enjoyed by the Democratic Party in both houses of Congress. Yet despite this Roosevelt was unable to accomplish anything approaching his triumphs in his first term, when he was able to pass through Congress legislation that transformed the nation. Instead Roosevelt squandered his political capital in ill-advised confrontations that diminished his standing and eroded his support. Though the first of these battles, over the Supreme Court “packing plan”, is well known, far less so is his subsequent effort to purge conservative Democrats from office during the 1938 midterm election. Susan Dunn’s book is a history of this effort, providing an examination of its origins, its consequences, and its subsequent impact on national politics.

Dunn argues that the origins of the purge lay in Roosevelt’s desire to reshape the American political landscape. In the early twentieth century, American political parties were mainly coalitions of regional political groupings, often ideologically disparate. Roosevelt aimed to change that by forcing the conservatives out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican one. His immediate motivation, however, lay in his frustration with the failure of his legislative agenda in Congress. Despite large Democratic majorities in both houses, his court-packing and executive reorganization bills were thwarted and his wages and hours legislation faced similar hard going. Roosevelt sought to target the conservative Democrats up for reelection in 1938 who had succeeded in stymying his agenda.

In spite of his enormous national popularity, Roosevelt’s plans faced considerable obstacles. Foremost among them was the political support these congressmen and senators enjoyed at home, even when that support clashed with their constituents’ approval for the New Deal programs their elected representatives often opposed. Many of the targeted politicians took advantage of this, turning Roosevelt’s attacks to their advantage by decrying national interference in their local elections, thus playing to voters’ sense of their independence. Nor was Roosevelt’s own camp completely on board, as Roosevelt’s handpicked party leader and former campaign manager, James Farley, conspicuously absented himself from the effort out of skepticism of its success and concern for the impact of such internecine warfare on the party’s prospects in November. Yet perhaps the greatest impediment to the president’s plans lay in Roosevelt’s own half-hearted efforts in his own cause. Often he seemed hesitant about his own campaign, starting out late in launching it and often pulling his punches in speeches. Opponents of Roosevelt’s targets often could not even count on outright endorsements, leaving them with little counter to the advantages provided by incumbency. As a result, Roosevelt’s efforts and the publicity surrounding them translated into few successes but many open wounds, confirming further the limits of even the president’s political ability.

Dunn’s book is an enjoyable narrative of the campaign. Drawing upon contemporary press coverage and other published sources, she sheds considerable light into an overshadowed aspect of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. Yet her narrative is based upon a flawed premise. The political realignment that her book attempts to establish had its origins not in 1938 but in the political campaign of another Roosevelt – his cousin Theodore, whose Progressive bolt form the GOP in 1912 was the true beginning of the recasting of party politics of ideological lines. Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency was only one – albeit very important – step down a road that the country was already on by the 1930s. By overlooking this Dunn overstates the importance of the Roosevelt purge in American political history and limits her achievement with this book, which ultimately chronicles more of a premature push than the dawning of the political landscape Americans know today.
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MacDad | Mar 27, 2020 |
1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler-the Election amid the Storm by Susan Dunn is an examination of the events surrounding 1940 presidential elections and world events that helped shape the election. Susan Dunn is Professor of Literature and the History of Ideas at Williams College and Senior Scholar and the Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland. She earned her PhD from Harvard in 1973 and is also the author of several books on American history.

The stage is set for the presidential elections of 1940. Franklin D. Roosevelt is finishing his second term as president. He had won both of his previous elections by a landslides but now his court packing plan has overwhelmingly failed and his New Deal programs are stalling. To help keep employment up FDR has begun production of war material in preparation for war. FDR's domestic programs, increased military spending, and aid to the allies created opposition in the United States. Republicans and isolationists wanted to keep America out of the war. Charles Lindbergh was a very vocal isolationist and supported Wilkie. His support was not because he believed Willkie was great leader, but more so, because he was not FDR. In June of 1940, Hitler would be dancing a celebratory jig in Paris. The stage was set.

Dunn does an excellent job of explaining the political process of from the Republican selection of Willke to justifying a third term for FDR. Charges of socialism were leveled at FDR and the Republicans reversed Wilson's claim of “He kept us out of war.” to “We kept HIM out of war." FDRs third term run for the presidency is discussed from the contemporary views of the time and the views of the the founding fathers and the Federalist Papers.

1940 covers in detail the campaign process including Roosevelt being “drafted” to run a third term. It is interesting reading that campaigns back in the 1940s were not much different from today. There were gaffs, and possible “romantic involvements” of some candidates, accusations of being a socialist, and even Ohio's role as the barometer of the campaign. Claims of ruining the country and gutting the military could easily have been written about the last several presidential elections just as well as it was in 1940. Willkie makes the claim that the Democratic Party was kidnapped by a few people who wanted power (shades of a few hijacking a religion of the 21st century) and to upset the two-term tradition. He then followed it with quotes from Lincoln and Washington.

The election results and the on coming involvement in Europe takes it toll on America and the politicians. Lend-Lease and England become important issues and alliances form and break. The Nazi threat to America becomes real as the USS Greer is attacked at sea (after giving a British Bomber the location of the sub). Willkie turns his support to the president. Lindbergh becomes more radical, after being call a “Copperhead”, he resigns his commission in the Reserve Air Corps. Texas passes a resolution informing Lindbergh that he was not welcome in the state. Lindbergh moves to the fringe. Willkie goes on to ally himself with the president to the point of being to progressive for the Republicans.

An enlightening book about a very important time in American history filled with issues and events that changed America and the world. America was on the surface very black and white with the issues, but underneath, most Americans could put away their differences when the country need it. Dunn's book is well written and supported with eighty pages of notes. 1940 presents a clear picture of American national politics in the pre-war years as well as examines the lives of the major players adding a human touch to the history. A very worthwhile read.
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evil_cyclist | 3 andra recensioner | Mar 16, 2020 |
Dunn's book covers not just a pivotal year in the political career of Franklin Delano Roosevelt but also a vital time in the history of the United States. In a time of incredible turmoil Dunn shows how the cool headed FDR prevailed against incredible odds to become the first President to be elected to a third term. Dunn does an excellent job to highlight the tension of the times which might otherwise be lost in the historical mists. Famed aviator Charles Lindbergh openly sympathizes with the Nazis and leads a section of the isolationists opposed to the US's entry into the upcoming war. As isolationists and interventionists battle it out in Congress, Paris is captured by Hitler and the people of the UK face increasingly destructive bombing raids of The BLitz.

FDR manages through political cunning and an uncanny ability to remain calm in the most stressful of situations to steer Congress towards allowing limited aid to the UK while at the same time maneuvering to discredit his potential opponents for the presidency in both the Democratic and Republican Party. And yes he does all of this while paralyzed from the waist down. One can't help coming away from this book recognizing the political genius and courage of Roosevelt in a single year in which the US, and the world, faced tremendous danger.
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twp77 | 3 andra recensioner | Jan 24, 2018 |

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Verk
14
Medlemmar
938
Popularitet
#27,380
Betyg
½ 3.7
Recensioner
12
ISBN
48
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