The Approaching Storm
Roosevelt, Wilson, Addams, and Their Clash Over America's Future
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2022 award for biography from the American Society of Journalists and Authors
The fascinating story of how the three most influential American progressives of the early twentieth century split over America’s response to World War I.
In the early years of the twentieth century, the most famous Americans on the national stage were Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jane Addams: two presidents and a social worker. Each took a different path to prominence, yet the three progressives believed the United States must assume a more dynamic role in confronting the growing domestic and international problems of an exciting new age.
Following the outset of World War I in 1914, the views of these three titans splintered as they could not agree on how America should respond to what soon proved to be an unprecedented global catastrophe. The Approaching Storm is the story of three extraordinary leaders and how they debated, quarreled, and split over the role the United States should play in the world.
By turns a colorful triptych of three American icons who changed history and the engrossing story of the roots of World War I, The Approaching Storm is a surprising and important story of how and why the United States emerged onto the world stage.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Lanctot (Campy: The Two Lives of Roy Campenella) delivers a fresh, character-driven look at the debate over America's entry into WWI. He focuses on three "giants" of the Progressive Era, each of whom advocated a different course of action. Recognizing that most Americans didn't want to get involved in European wars, President Woodrow Wilson established an official policy of neutrality in August 1914. Jane Addams, who enjoyed near-universal admiration for her innovative social welfare programs, promoted pacifism and organized an international peace conference in The Hague in April 1915. The following month, a German submarine sank the passenger ship Lusitania, killing 128 Americans. Support grew for the military preparedness advocated by former president Theodore Roosevelt, whose comeback bid (as nominee of the Progressive Party) against Wilson in the 1912 election had fallen short. After winning reelection in 1916, Wilson tried and failed to broker a peace deal, and finally asked Congress for a war declaration in April 1917. Lanctot smoothly toggles between his three main subjects and intriguing secondary characters including Hungarian suffragist and pacifist Rosika Schwimmer and American novelist James Norman Hall, who volunteered to fight with the British. The result is a rich and rewarding portrait of a crucial turning point in American history.
