★《紐約時報》暢銷書作者威廉．希契柯克最新著作

A riveting, revelatory portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the lead-up to World War II, tracing his – and America’s – awakening to the threat of fascism

How did FDR and the American public respond to the rise of dictators across Europe and Asia on the eve of World War II? The familiar narrative is that they reacted with indifference and embraced isolationism. Only with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor were Americans reluctantly drawn into the global conflict. But distinguished historian William I. Hitchcock reveals a far more complex and surprising story.

From the time Mussolini came to power in 1922 to America’s entry into the war in 1941, Americans engaged in a fraught national debate over the rising threat—and for some, the lure—of fascism. At the center of this debate was Roosevelt himself. When he took office in 1933, Roosevelt was determined to avoid foreign entanglements that would harm his ambitious domestic agenda of the New Deal. But over the course of his first two terms, a network of journalists, activists, advisers, and diplomats gradually awakened him to the global dangers of fascism.

Roosevelt’s transformation was part of a larger national reckoning with authoritarianism around the world. A Shadow Over the World shines a light on a time when a coalition of courageous humanists gathered around a visionary leader to forge a new purpose for America: to protect democracy, oppose imperialism, support human rights, and lead a global fight for freedom. Their successful struggle against the dark forces of fascism holds powerful lessons for our own perilous times.

William I. Hitchcock is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning teacher who has published numerous books relating to World War II and the Cold War, including The Bitter Road to Freedom, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a winner of the George Louis Beer Prize from the American Historical Association. He received his BA degree from Kenyon College and his PhD from Yale University. He has been a Fulbright scholar, a fellow of the Nobel Institute in Oslo, the holder of the Henry Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress, and a Berlin Prize fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He is now the James Madison Professor of History at the University of Virginia.

“By bringing FDR and his trials with public opinion at home back to vivid life, Hitchcock has given us an unflinching, unsentimental portrait of a president and a populace trying to make their way through uncertainty and complexity.”－ Jon Meacham, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of America

“Hitchcock’s vivid account of America and its president as a bulwark of democracy in a world of rising authoritarians could not be more timely.”－ Timothy W. Ryback, author of 53 Days: How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy