Though written at different times, and in response to different occasions, the essays in this book aim to offer a convincing and coherent approach to the interpretation of the topic referred to in the title. The initial impetus for this long course of historical research came in 1976, with a...

Today FDR's New Deal is regarded as the democratic ideal, the positive American response to the economic crisis that propelled Germany and Italy toward Fascism. Yet in the 1930s, these regimes were hardly considered antithetical. Cultural historian Schivelbusch investigates their shared elements...