1932 : the rise of Hitler and FDR -- two tales of politics, betrayal, and unlikely destiny
(Book - Paperback, Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"1932: Two Depression-battered nations confront destiny, going to the polls to anoint new leaders, to rescue their people from starvation and hopelessness. America elects a Congress and a president--ebullient aristocrat Franklin Roosevelt or tarnished 'Wonder Boy' Herbert Hoover. Weimar Germany suffers two rounds of bloody Reichstag elections and two presidential contests--doddering reactionary Paul von Hindenburg against rising hate-monger Adolf Hitler. The outcome: FDR's New Deal and Hitler's Third Reich. But neither was inevitable. Readers enter the fray through award-winning author David Pietrusza's page-turning account: Roosevelt's fellow Democrats may stop him at a deadlocked convention. Al Smith, 1928's Democratic nominee, harbors a grudge against his onetime protégé. William Randolph Hearst also plans to block Roosevelt's ascent to the White House. FDR's juggling of a New York City scandal threatens his juggernaut. In Germany, the Nazis surge but twice fall short of Reichstag majorities. Hitler, tasting power after a lifetime of failure, falls to Hindenburg for the presidency--also twice within the year. Cabals and counter-cabals plot. Secrets of love and suicide haunt Hitler. Yet guile, ambition, and terror may still prevail. [This] is a breathtaking tale of scapegoats and panaceas, of class warfare and racial politics, of massive unemployment and hardship, of unprecedented public works/infrastructure programs, of stimulus programs and allegations of political cronyism, of bank failures and mortgages foreclosed, of Washington bonus marches and Berlin street fights, of rapidly shifting social mores, and of international debt threatening to crash the entire global economy It is the tale of spellbinding leaders versus bland businessmen and out-of-touch upper-class elites, and of two nations inching to safety but lurching toward disaster, It is 1932's nightmare--with lessons for today."--Dust jacket.

Depicts the events of 1932, marking the ascent of two political powers that would shape the rest of the twentieth century to come.