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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Charles Kaiser

Uniting America review: how FDR and the GOP beat fascism home and away

Franklin D Roosevelt speaks on the radio from the White House in 1941.
Franklin D Roosevelt speaks on the radio from the White House in 1941. Photograph: Henry Griffin/AP

The subtitle of this remarkable popular history is “How FDR and Henry Stimson Brought Democrats and Republicans together to Win World War II”, Stimson being the Republican Franklin Roosevelt chose as secretary of war on 19 June 1940, the same day he chose another Republican, Frank Knox, for secretary of the navy.

Those appointments came five weeks after the king asked Winston Churchill to form a unity government in Great Britain, two weeks after 338,000 French and British troops were rescued at Dunkirk, and four weeks before Roosevelt was nominated for an unprecedented third term, all events featured in this compelling volume.

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