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Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945
Since the original publication of this classic book in 1979, Roosevelt's foreign policy has come under attack on three main Was Roosevelt responsible for the confrontation with Japan that led to the attack at Pearl Harbor? Did Roosevelt "give away" Eastern Europe to Stalin and the U.S.S.R. at Yalta? And, most significantly, did Roosevelt abandon Europe's Jews to the Holocaust, making no direct effort to aid them?
In a new Afterword to his definitive history, Dallek vigorously and brilliantly defends Roosevelt's policy. He emphasizes how Roosevelt operated as a master politician in maintaining a national consensus for his foreign policy throughout his presidency and how he brilliantly achieved his policy and military goals.
In a new Afterword to his definitive history, Dallek vigorously and brilliantly defends Roosevelt's policy. He emphasizes how Roosevelt operated as a master politician in maintaining a national consensus for his foreign policy throughout his presidency and how he brilliantly achieved his policy and military goals.
688 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Robert Dallek
55 books171 followersRobert A. Dallek is an American historian specializing in the presidents of the United States, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon.
In 2004 he retired as a history professor at Boston University after previously having taught at Columbia University, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Oxford University.
He won the Bancroft Prize for his 1979 book Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, as well as other awards for scholarship and teaching.
In 2004 he retired as a history professor at Boston University after previously having taught at Columbia University, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Oxford University.
He won the Bancroft Prize for his 1979 book Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, as well as other awards for scholarship and teaching.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 4, 2020
This volume is a comprehensive study of FDR’s foreign policy, which deals with the many interesting questions about that subject. It can be logically divided in four parts.
In the first part the author presents the Internationalist as Nationalist, examining the diplomacy of hope, nationalism, and the end of internationalism.
In the second part of the book the Internationalist is already Isolationist standing still.
The third part, which – for me at least – was the most interesting, studies the politics of foreign policy between 1939 and 1941. Dallek examines Roosevelt’s limited influence caused by the public’s opposition to he methods of deterring Hitler, his later role of a reluctant neutral, and the tortuous road to War.
The fourth part deals with FDR’s transformation from an idealist to a realist and his policy between 1942 and 1945z
In the years since WWII, Roosevelt has come under attack for his handling of foreign affairs. His response to the London Economic Congress, his neutrality in the thirties, his pre-Pearl Harbor dealings with Japan, and his wartime approach to China, Russia, and France, and his cautious reactions to the destruction of Europe’s Jews, Nazi victories, and apparent wartime opportunities for transforming China had provoked complaints of superficiality and naïveté.
According to Robert Dallek, during the thirties, when the Congress and the public opposed any risk of involvement in “foreign wars”, Roosevelt had felt obliged to rely on symbols to answer threats from abroad. For example, his handling of the London Economic Congress was less an expression of confusion or overblown visions of curing the Depression from outside the States than a failed attempt to restore faith in international cooperation.
However, Roosevelt’s contribution to the survival of international democracy came not through symbolic gestures in the thirties but through substantial actions during World War II. In the years 1939-1941 Roosevelt had to balance the country’s desire to stay out of the war against it’s urge to secure the defeat of the Nazis. Roosevelt’s solution was to combine the two goals together: the surest road to peace, he persuaded the nation, was material aid to the Allies.
In his book, Robert Dallek vigorously defends FDR’s policy. He emphasizes the how masterfully Roosevelt achieved his political and military goals. A brilliant, detailed and very well-written study.
In the first part the author presents the Internationalist as Nationalist, examining the diplomacy of hope, nationalism, and the end of internationalism.
In the second part of the book the Internationalist is already Isolationist standing still.
The third part, which – for me at least – was the most interesting, studies the politics of foreign policy between 1939 and 1941. Dallek examines Roosevelt’s limited influence caused by the public’s opposition to he methods of deterring Hitler, his later role of a reluctant neutral, and the tortuous road to War.
The fourth part deals with FDR’s transformation from an idealist to a realist and his policy between 1942 and 1945z
In the years since WWII, Roosevelt has come under attack for his handling of foreign affairs. His response to the London Economic Congress, his neutrality in the thirties, his pre-Pearl Harbor dealings with Japan, and his wartime approach to China, Russia, and France, and his cautious reactions to the destruction of Europe’s Jews, Nazi victories, and apparent wartime opportunities for transforming China had provoked complaints of superficiality and naïveté.
According to Robert Dallek, during the thirties, when the Congress and the public opposed any risk of involvement in “foreign wars”, Roosevelt had felt obliged to rely on symbols to answer threats from abroad. For example, his handling of the London Economic Congress was less an expression of confusion or overblown visions of curing the Depression from outside the States than a failed attempt to restore faith in international cooperation.
However, Roosevelt’s contribution to the survival of international democracy came not through symbolic gestures in the thirties but through substantial actions during World War II. In the years 1939-1941 Roosevelt had to balance the country’s desire to stay out of the war against it’s urge to secure the defeat of the Nazis. Roosevelt’s solution was to combine the two goals together: the surest road to peace, he persuaded the nation, was material aid to the Allies.
In his book, Robert Dallek vigorously defends FDR’s policy. He emphasizes the how masterfully Roosevelt achieved his political and military goals. A brilliant, detailed and very well-written study.
March 24, 2013
In his 1979 work Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1921 – 1945 Robert Dallek reviews the thirteen year record of the Roosevelt administration on foreign affairs. The survey is lengthy, but the method is simple: to reconceptualize Roosevelt’s maneuvering on the international stage within the context of public and congressional opinion. Tracing Roosevelt through his early years, Dallek portrays him as, at core, an idealistic internationalist. Deeply influenced by the collapse of public support for Wilsonian internationalism following the First World War, Roosevelt’s opportunistic ambition and evasive political dexterity obscured his underlying commitments to an interdependent world. Roosevelt, President Hoover complained, was “a chameleon on plaid,” impossible to pin down. Still, Dallek assures us that “[b]ehind the façade of indifference, he remained vitally concerned about international affairs,” committed to the idea that long term peace and prosperity required a stable American commitment to international engagement. In a narrative that stresses the view from the White House, Dallek points to opinion polls revealing the overwhelming hostility of voters toward American involvement in the disintegrating affairs of Europe and East Asia during the 1930s, and Roosevelt’s tortuous caution to stay on the right side of public opinion. For instance, the 1935 defeat in the Senate of the revised protocols for the World Court, after an opposition campaign led by the Hearst press and rising stars Huey Long and Father Coughlin, led Roosevelt to a nervous international passivity. “We shall go through a period of non-cooperation in everything,” he wrote in one letter, “for the next year or two.” Instead, Roosevelt relied on a diplomacy of symbolism to signal America’s opposition to the rising fascist powers.
Dallek acknowledges that Roosevelt made serious errors – but insists that he be judged within the context of the constraints which public opinion and political opposition placed on him. It was American isolationism, then, that dictated American non-involvement in the Spanish Civil War and that turned away Jewish refugees. It was regrettable that during the summer of 1941 congressional isolationists “helped force Roosevelt into the machinations” of preparing “special operations” hidden from Congress that amounted to undeclared war in July, concocting fake stories about German submarines attacking American ships without provocation in August, and ordered J. Edgar Hoover to conduct surveillance of Congressmen in September. While Dallek is upfront in noting the uses to which these precedents were put by subsequent presidents, his judgment is that in light of the Nazi menace, “[i]t is difficult to fault Roosevelt for building a consensus by devious means.” Nor, once the war was all but won does Dallek particularly fault Roosevelt for disguising the aggressive stance he took toward the Soviet Union in the Balkans, by withholding atomic technology, expanding military bases and stationing troops in southern Germany. “Mindful that any emphasis on this kind of Realpolitik might weaken American public resolve to play an enduring role in world affairs, Roosevelt made these actions the hidden side of his diplomacy.” Such phrases roll easily by after five hundred pages in which Dallek has justified Roosevelt’s secrecy in terms of the threatening Nazi menace, but raise the question – at what point does Dallek ever feel the President is obligated to tell the voters the truth?
Dallek acknowledges that Roosevelt made serious errors – but insists that he be judged within the context of the constraints which public opinion and political opposition placed on him. It was American isolationism, then, that dictated American non-involvement in the Spanish Civil War and that turned away Jewish refugees. It was regrettable that during the summer of 1941 congressional isolationists “helped force Roosevelt into the machinations” of preparing “special operations” hidden from Congress that amounted to undeclared war in July, concocting fake stories about German submarines attacking American ships without provocation in August, and ordered J. Edgar Hoover to conduct surveillance of Congressmen in September. While Dallek is upfront in noting the uses to which these precedents were put by subsequent presidents, his judgment is that in light of the Nazi menace, “[i]t is difficult to fault Roosevelt for building a consensus by devious means.” Nor, once the war was all but won does Dallek particularly fault Roosevelt for disguising the aggressive stance he took toward the Soviet Union in the Balkans, by withholding atomic technology, expanding military bases and stationing troops in southern Germany. “Mindful that any emphasis on this kind of Realpolitik might weaken American public resolve to play an enduring role in world affairs, Roosevelt made these actions the hidden side of his diplomacy.” Such phrases roll easily by after five hundred pages in which Dallek has justified Roosevelt’s secrecy in terms of the threatening Nazi menace, but raise the question – at what point does Dallek ever feel the President is obligated to tell the voters the truth?
July 11, 2014
An Excellent Account
An excellent account of U.S. foreign policy as waged by the great man Roosevelt. There are details in this book which are not found in others. Dallek is not regurgitating other writer's viewpoints.
All points are lucidly explained. For instance; Roosevelt's dealing's with Chaing Kai-shek and his cabinet member's, Cordell Hull, Sumner Welles...
The enormous opposition Roosevelt faced from isolationists is discussed at length. No one can doubt after reading this book, how short-sighted these people were in relation to the futuristic Roosevelt.
Roosevelt was the rare politician who could project into the future. His vision was not just the short-term, but the long view.
In 1941 he triggered the second version of the United Nations during his meeting with Churchill off of Newfoundland. He was giving the world - like Nazi occupied Europe - an alternate and much more benevolent view.
The only omission I found was the Royal visit of the King and Queen of England to Washington and Hyde Park in the summer of 1939 - just prior to the outbreak of war. At the time this was another attempt by Roosevelt to bring Americans closer and more sympathetic to the building conflict in Europe.
An excellent account of U.S. foreign policy as waged by the great man Roosevelt. There are details in this book which are not found in others. Dallek is not regurgitating other writer's viewpoints.
All points are lucidly explained. For instance; Roosevelt's dealing's with Chaing Kai-shek and his cabinet member's, Cordell Hull, Sumner Welles...
The enormous opposition Roosevelt faced from isolationists is discussed at length. No one can doubt after reading this book, how short-sighted these people were in relation to the futuristic Roosevelt.
Roosevelt was the rare politician who could project into the future. His vision was not just the short-term, but the long view.
In 1941 he triggered the second version of the United Nations during his meeting with Churchill off of Newfoundland. He was giving the world - like Nazi occupied Europe - an alternate and much more benevolent view.
The only omission I found was the Royal visit of the King and Queen of England to Washington and Hyde Park in the summer of 1939 - just prior to the outbreak of war. At the time this was another attempt by Roosevelt to bring Americans closer and more sympathetic to the building conflict in Europe.
October 15, 2021
A detailed description of F.D. Roosevelt's foreign policy during his presidency. Its main value is showing not only his accomplishments but also many of his initiatives or views that failed or have not been accepted by the others.
For me personally it was surprising to learn of many instances where he was saying one thing and doing something else. The book illustrates many cases where his long term view made him to compromise some short term benefits.
The book shows Roosevelt from many angles, and especially his relationship, and disagreements with Churchill, and also his approach to Stalin and his sometimes too gentle treatment of this dictator. The best example of this is ability of Stalin to be able to retain his territorial gains following the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, despite Roosevelt's moral objections to such arrangement.
The book was written in the late seventies and its dry style sometimes makes it a bit tedious, which fortunately is paid off by the numerous details not usually found in the other books on this topic.
For me personally it was surprising to learn of many instances where he was saying one thing and doing something else. The book illustrates many cases where his long term view made him to compromise some short term benefits.
The book shows Roosevelt from many angles, and especially his relationship, and disagreements with Churchill, and also his approach to Stalin and his sometimes too gentle treatment of this dictator. The best example of this is ability of Stalin to be able to retain his territorial gains following the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, despite Roosevelt's moral objections to such arrangement.
The book was written in the late seventies and its dry style sometimes makes it a bit tedious, which fortunately is paid off by the numerous details not usually found in the other books on this topic.
May 19, 2021
FDR was responsible for perhaps the greatest foreign policy triumph of any modern political leader, at least in the US -- victory in WWII. However, his foreign policy was not perfect and throughout the thirties, his (understandable) focus on domestic policy led to several errors which arguably inflamed the situation in the globe and led to WWII. For instance, the cautious line tread during the Spanish Civil War. Roosevelt's most egregious errors, such as his apparent indifference to the Holocaust, are examined here, but not nearly criticized enough. At the end of the book, Dallek sums up FDR's foreign policy legacy as mixed but excuses his failures while lionizing his (impressive) successes. It would have made more sense, and a more interesting book, for a harder tone on where Roosevelt fell short.
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September 14, 2025The main argument of "Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945" is that Roosevelt had to balance his inclination toward internationalism with United States's popular and elite skepticism among United States's involvement in European or global affairs. The failure of Wilson shapes much of Roosevelt's early presidency, but slowly events cause the public and elites to come to Roosevelt's line of thinking while he himself evolves (or compromises) to match the needs of the public.
Foreign policy in democracy is tricky (to say the least) due to reliant on public consensus for issues far beyond public understanding. Of course no one here wants/wanted to get involved outside their borders, but eventually you have to or else what happens outside your borders will get involved with you. This is why any belief in national defense as something only happening in the contexts of your sovereign territory is goofy. Not an endorsement of unrestrained interventionism, but what you do (or don't do) outside your country can lead to the next Pearl Harbors or 9/11's.
Foreign policy in democracy is tricky (to say the least) due to reliant on public consensus for issues far beyond public understanding. Of course no one here wants/wanted to get involved outside their borders, but eventually you have to or else what happens outside your borders will get involved with you. This is why any belief in national defense as something only happening in the contexts of your sovereign territory is goofy. Not an endorsement of unrestrained interventionism, but what you do (or don't do) outside your country can lead to the next Pearl Harbors or 9/11's.
August 22, 2009
This was a crapper book. Meaning it was sitting on my toilet and took a while to finish. It was nicely divided into two sections, Post wwII and Pre wwII. I noticed that Obama has done some of the same moves as FDR using Hilary as a wild card, so if she pisses any country off, Obama can easily decline and say that bitch is crazy, she was trying to run the country after her defeat of trying to take my job and so forth. During WWII FDR had the same method of flipping cabinet members in the secretary of state position in order to disguise what he really demanded. Hull was his real negotiator, while fronting others to see what the countries could agree upon when he wasn't present. FDR and Churchill disagreed because FDR wanted to make China one of the four powers during this time. Do you think that has come back to haunt us? At least we still have airforces in England for another 50 years, according to a treaty of helping Britain out during the Nazi rise.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews