William I. Hitchcock returns to the George C. Marshall Foundation on Thursday, November 12 at 5:30 p.m. for a Legacy Lecture about his book A Shadow Over the World: Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Rise of Fascism, and the Making of America’s World War II. A book signing and reception will follow the presentation.
How did America awaken to the danger of fascism?
Popular memory often reduces America’s approach to World War II to a contest between a farsighted Franklin D. Roosevelt and an isolationist public. In A Shadow Over the World: Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Rise of Fascism, and the Making of America’s World War II, William I. Hitchcock overturns that account. Beginning with Mussolini’s rise in 1922, he traces how arguments about fascism moved through newspapers, radio, diplomatic circles, activist organizations, and the White House. Eleanor Roosevelt, journalist Dorothy Thompson and writer Robert Sherwood warned that dictatorship abroad threatened democratic life at home. Their work helped change how Roosevelt understood America’s place in the world.
Hitchcock follows Roosevelt’s transformation from a president determined to protect the New Deal from foreign entanglements into the leader of a nation preparing to defend democracy globally. The book shows how that shift emerged through persuasion, political conflict, and repeated confrontation with fascist aggression, not through one sudden awakening at Pearl Harbor. It also defines the world George C. Marshall entered as Army chief of staff in September 1939. While Roosevelt and the American people determined what obligations the crisis imposed, Marshall had to turn that emerging commitment into military capacity, building an understrength Army into the force the nation would soon require.
How can I attend?
The event is free to the public, but reservations are required. To reserve a seat, or for more information about the event, contact [email protected] or call 540.463.7103, ext. 138.
How can I watch from home?
The presentation will also be livestreamed on the Marshall Foundation YouTube channel (https://bit.ly/2Or0E8D) simultaneously. Viewers of the stream are encouraged to write questions using the live video chat (to the lower right of the video) or via email at [email protected]. Chat will be monitored for abusive comments.
Who is William I. Hitchcock?
William I. Hitchcock is the James Madison Professor of History and director of Governing America in a Global Era at the University of Virginia. His work focuses on the global history of the twentieth century, especially the two world wars and the Cold War. He is the author of The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the George Louis Beer Prize, and the New York Times bestseller The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s. A former Fulbright scholar and Henry Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress, Hitchcock returns to the Marshall Foundation to discuss his newest book.
Related content
Explore Franklin Roosevelt’s vision of the Four Freedoms; follow George C. Marshall as he became Army chief of staff on the day Germany invaded Poland; examine how Marshall navigated public distrust of military power during the nation’s prewar mobilization; and consider his belief that preparing a democracy for danger required working through civilian authority, Congress, and public opinion.
The George C. Marshall Foundation Legacy Series is sponsored by:
Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation; Edward Jones; CornerStone Bank; Lexington Sunrise Rotary Club; Raymond James; and Mr. Ted Judt