Five Days in Philadelphia: The Amazing "We Want Willkie!" Convention of 1940 and How It Freed FDR to Save the Western World

by Charles Peters

There were four strong contenders when the Republican party met in June of 1940 in Philadelphia to nominate its candidate for the crusading young attorney and rising Republican star Tom Dewey, solid members of the Republican establishment Robert Taft and Arthur Vandenberg, and dark horse Wendell Willkie, utilities executive, favorite of the literati and only very recently even a Republican. The leading Republican candidates campaigned as isolationists. The charismatic Willkie, newcomer and upstager, was a liberal interventionist, just as anti-Hitler as FDR. After five days of floor rallies, telegrams from across the country, multiple ballots, rousing speeches, backroom deals, terrifying international news, and, most of all, the relentless chanting of "We Want Willkie" from the gallery, Willkie walked away with the nomination. The story of how this happened — and of how essential his nomination would prove in allowing FDR to save Britain and prepare this country for entry into World War II — is all told in Charles Peters' Five Days in Philadelphia . As Peters shows, these five action-packed days and their improbable outcome were as important as the Battle of Britain in defeating the Nazis.

Genres: History, Politics, Us Presidents, American History, World War II, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2005

About the author

Charles Given Peters Jr. (December 22, 1926 – November 23, 2023) was an American journalist, editor, and author. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of the Washington Monthly magazine and the author of We Do Our Part: Toward A Fairer and More Equal America (Random House, 2017). Writing in The New York Times, Jonathan Martin called the book a “well timed … cri de coeur” and “a desperate plea to his country and party to resist the temptations of greed, materialism and elitism.”

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Charles T. Peters Jr.: Erotic

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

When American Politics Worked

I came to Charles Peters' study "Five Days in Philadelphia" (2005) after reading Steve Neal's biography of Wendell Willkie, "Dark Horse" I wanted to learn more about the fascinating and now almost forgotten Republican presidential candidate of 1940. Reading about Willkie (1892 -- 1944) intrigued me when I was young.

Charles Peters is a Washington political insider who founded the "Washington Monthly" political magazine and edited it for thirty years. He has written a study, "How Washington Really Works" How Washington Really Works. His most recent book is a succinct study of Lyndon Johnson for the American Presidents Series Lyndon B. Johnson: The American Presidents Series: The 36th President, 1963-1969. "Five Days in Philadelphia" was greatly influenced by Neal's biography of Willkie. But Peters' book has a personal element. As a teenager in Charleston, West Virginia, Peters developed the love of the political process to which he would devote his life. He and his family became fascinated by Willkie and by the 1940 presidential election. Indeed, he and his family traveled from Charleston to Chicago in the summer of 1940 to attend the tumultuous Democratic convention which nominated President Roosevelt for a third term together with his chosen running mate, Henry Wallace. Roosevelt's choice of Wallace bitterly divided his party. Peters' account is based upon his impressions as a politically precocious adolescent together with his broad reading at the time and the development of subsequent historical sources.

The book is not a biography of Willkie. Instead its focus is on international events -- the fall of France and the fear of German invasion of England -- on American politics in 1940, and on Willkie's improbable rise to the Republican presidential nomination. With the exception of military leaders, such as Grant or Eisenhower, Willkie remains the only presidential nominee of a major party who had never held a political office. Willkie had been a successful Wall Street lawyer and utilities executive who came to prominence by his opposition to the Tennessee Valley Authority. He had been a lifelong Democrat until he changed his political registration to Republican late in 1939. With strong support from the news media and Wall Street together with the force of his personality Willkie rose to become a dark horse contender for the 1940 nomination. He was also supported by a powerful, well-organized grass roots movement.

The leading contenders for the Republican nomination, Dewey, Taft, and Vandenberg had been isolationists who opposed United States assistance to England and United States entry into the war. In a day-by-day analysis of the Republican convention in Philadelphia from June 24 -- June 28, 1940, Peters offers a dramatic account of how growing internationalist sentiment resulting from the fall of France propelled Willkie to the nomination on the sixth ballot. Peters' offers a positive and detailed account of Willkie's path to the nomination which rejects the claim sometimes made that the Eastern establishment engineered it. Peter's agrees instead with the view expressed at the time that the nomination constituted "a genuine popular revolt" and "a tremendous and historical revolt of the people against the politicians." (p.115) The story still has the capacity to inspire. Peters also examines the Democratic convention in Chicago in August, 1940. Although Roosevelt was easily re-nominated, the Democratic convention was nearly as contentious as the Republican.

The second part of Peters' book focuses on the 1940 campaign and on the relationship between Roosevelt and Willkie. During the campaign, Willkie courageously supported the Selective Service Act. Somewhat more tentatively, he also supported Roosevelt's proposal to sent 50 destroyers to England to assist in its fight for survival against Germany. Peters argues forcefully that no other possible Republican candidate would have taken these stances. Willkie was able to put his view of the good of the nation above narrow partisanship. In so doing, Peters argues, he made it possible for Roosevelt's program of assistance and military preparedness to succeed.

After Willkie's defeat, his actions became even more governed by principle rather than by political expediency. Peters describes the Lend-Lease program of 1941 which gave the president broad authority to authorize military assistance to American allies. By contemporaneous accounts, Willkie's testimony before Congress was instrumental in securing enactment of the lend-lease program.

Peters offers high praise to Willkie, to Roosevelt, and to the American people for coming together on principle at a moment of significance and danger. Willkie's nomination was in part a stroke of luck and in part an exemplification of American politics at its best. His support of Selective Service, the destroyer deal and Lend-Lease made it possible for Roosevelt to pursue his programs with a showing of bipartisanship. It would be difficult to conceive of a Willkie story in current American politics with the changes in the convention system. Furthermore, Willkie had his personal weaknesses, which primarily involved womanizing (a trait he shared with FDR) as well as excessive use of alcohol. Peters observes that in the current political environment that these flaws would likely have prevented Willkie's political activity at the outset.

Before his death in 1944, Willkie told a friend that "If I could write my own epitaph and I could choose between 'Here lies an unimportant president' or "Here lies one who contributed to saving freedom at a moment of great peril' I would prefer the latter." (p. 195) His idealism and determination during his short political career confirm his statement. Willkie's story, Roosevelt's story, and the American people's story in 1940 remains inspiring. I have learned a great deal in revisiting my youthful interest in Wendell Willkie.

Robin Friedman

[Neal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book focuses on a chapter in American political history that is barely touched on today. Wendell Wilkie was the sole anti-Hitler candidate seeking the Republican nomination in 1940. His battle to win the nomination at the 1940 Republican convention over more popular and more established candidates like Robert Taft and Tom Dewey is a pretty amazing story unto itself, especially when compared to the carefully rehearsed and utterly unsurprising conventions of today. But this book also shows how Wilkie's nomination helped Franklin Delano Roosevelt gain much needed support in his quest to aid embattled Great Britain. It's hard to imagine now that American support for Britain against fascism was not such a popular cause in 1940 and that the war could have taken a very different turn had we decided to sit on the sidelines. The "smoke-filled room" politics presented in this book provide enjoyable reading and the historical stakes heighten the drama, but it's also interesting to get a glimpse at the old Grand Old Party and how dramatically different it is from the Rush Limbaugh view of conservatism we have today. If the Republican Party looked like this now, I'd be tempted to change sides.

[Jerry Landry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I enjoyed Peters’s narrative style in describing the 1940 election, but there were some slight factual issues that hopefully were corrected in later editions. Still, I did enjoy the spotlight that Peters placed on Willkie’s role in the lead up to the American entry into World War II. I think he touched upon some points that most historians have not focused heavily on, so he provides a new perspective on a well-studied part of American history.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

If the reader is old enough to remember when conventions meant something then they might find this book interesting. It is about the 1940 Republican convention and how it changed the history of the United States and ultimately the history of the world.
It is a sparkling insight into the smoke-filled rooms where candidates were made and history was created.

[James Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wendell Willkie was much more than an alliterative footnote to American political history (can you even SAY "Wendell" or "Willkie" without the other name coming to mind? I can't!). It is difficult to imagine what it was like in 1940. Sure, we know that World War II was revving up, and that Hitler was sweeping through Europe. But we tend to think of the war as a moral imperative where good triumphed over evil, and where America become a world power by saving Europe. But in the lead-up to the 1940 Presidential election, America was worse than a no-show. Most Americans were against participating, or even sending arms to the Allies. Some prominent Americans, including ex-President Hoover, thought that the Nazis had already won and that our best course was to negotiate a post-war world with them. We came THIS close to living in a Nazi world. That is what "America First" meant.

There were two prominent exceptions to American isolationism: President Franklin Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie, who became the Republican Presidential nominee in 1940. But it was highly unlikely that either would be running for President in 1940, which would have left the field, and the next US Administration, to isolationists. Roosevelt knew that he had to run, given what was at stake, namely the free world. But he was not the front runner for the Democrats. And Willkie wasn't even in the running (polling ZERO percent support up to less than a year before the convention).

Both Willkie and Roosevelt were firm supporters of AT LEAST arming our allies, especially Britain. Unfortunately, it was illegal to do so thanks to isolationist legislation passed to tie the President's hands. Roosevelt needed political cover, and bipartisan support. Willkie provided both.

The "Five Days" in the title were the five days of the 1940 Republican convention. The convention began with Willkie as an afterthought, predicted to be out of the running by the second or third ballot. (The first ballot was usually for show, where states nominate "favorite sons", to give their local politicians some strokes.) But he had clever, behind the scenes, support. The local police chief, who was in charge of checking incomers for valid tickets, stacked the galleries with Willkie supporters. The new President of the convention ruled repeatedly in Willkie's favor, after the original non-Willkie President had to step down. And Willkie's supporters launched a modern, grass roots campaign, where citizens wrote thousands of letters and telegrams to their state delegations. And Willkie and his staff cleverly traded votes, and in one case favors. In the end, after an unprecedented number of ballots, Willkie won the nominations. Those five days were as dramatic as any fiction. It is odd to say, but the 1940 Republican convention makes for riveting, can't-put-down reading.

So we ended up with two pro-British, and pro-American-Intervention presidential candidates. One was a larger than life, rich boy who stood up for the "little guy". The other was a farm boy who had made it big on Wall street, who chain smoked, drank like a fish, and womanized whenever he could. That's Roosevelt and Willkie, respectively.

There are important lessons for us, today, in the 1940 Republican convention. Primaries had not pre-determined the outcome. There was room left for smart politicking and public input. If this convention were like ours today, with binding primaries and no scope for thought at the convention, we would be living in a Nazi America. There is a place for "back room" politics, and for using primaries to vet candidates, not to select them. Also, what mattered was what the candidates said, thought, and believed, not who they slept with or their personal habits. Americans responded to ideas and arguments, not to tabloid journalism. Voters didn't vote out of spite, or from a sense of grievance. American voters could still be wrong--and I insist that the isolationists were objectively wrong. But at least they weren't distracted with trivia. And "opposing" candidates were open to working with, and even supporting, their "opposites".

I couldn't put this book down. It was as good as a great story, but with the added clarity and importance of being non-fiction. I highly recommend it, and hope that those who read it will consider the implications for today.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating Look at the 1940 Republican Convention and Willkie’s support of FDR’s preparation for war

This is a fascinating look at the important 1940 Republican convention which, improbably, nominated Wendell Willkie, who had only recently been a registered Democrat, over isolationist Republicans Robert Taft, Thomas Dewey, and Arthur Vandenberg — any one of whom was favored to capture the nomination over Willkie.

This is a quick (200 pages), entertaining read for both political junkies who will be fascinated by the way political conventions worked at the time, and for those who believe that Willkie played an important role as an internationalist who recognized the danger of a Nazi victory over Britain as she stood alone.

Willkie opposed Franklin Roosevelt’s domestic economic policies. He was an electric utility executive very much against the Tennessee Valley Authority and other New Deal incursions on the private sector. But he covered FDR’s flank as the President supported Britain at a desperate time and prepared America for war with the first peacetime draft.

Isolation sentiment in 1940 was very strong, fueled by the belief that America should not get involved in “European wars” as we did in World War I. A Roper Poll at the beginning of 1940, before the Nazis overran France, showed that only 2.5% of those surveyed favored entering the war and only 14.7% thought the US should enter the war if Britain and France were in danger of losing. More than 80% of those surveyed were isolationist to a greater or lesser degree.
Isolationists included not only the three leading Republican candidates for the nomination, but also Herbert Hoover, Charles Lindbergh, and Henry Ford who said, “Give both sides [Germany and Britain] war materials…to keep them fighting until they collapse.”

Many Irish-American members of Congress harbored strong, visceral anti-British sentiment and opposed any aid to England. On the left, dedicated Communist party members, on instructions from Moscow which had signed a pact with Nazi Germany, also opposed aid to Britain.

In a period before delegates were selected through primaries, author Charles Peter’s description of the maneuvering at the Republican Convention of 1940 is riveting. The outcome was not predetermined and the five days of the convention were characterized by floor rallies, telegrams from across the country, multiple ballots, rousing speeches and backroom deals.
Willkie had to overcome suspicion about his recent conversion to the Republican Party. As one Republican senator observed, “Back home in Indiana we think it’s all right for the town whore to join the church, but we don’t let her head the choir on the first night.”

Willkie was helped by the support of Mayor of Chicago Ed Kelley, who controlled passes to the convention hall and packed the visitor’s gallery. He also controlled the public address system and provoked “We want Willkie!” chants as momentum for Willkie built among the delegates.

Before television, campaigning was different in many ways. Once nominated, Willkie spent time relaxing on a yacht, since the tradition was that presidential campaigns didn’t begin until after Labor Day. But then he began a vigorous campaign. He had so many photo opportunities at his Indiana farm that one newspaper columnist observed that, “Every time a cameraman shows up, the hogs run right over to strike a pose.” When “whistle stop” campaigning by train was important, Willkie traveled more than 18,000 miles through 31 states, making 560 stops for speeches.

During the presidential campaign, Willkie rose above politics as far as FDR’s efforts to support Britain were concerned. For example, he did not attack FDR’s controversial deal to supply 50 aged destroyers to Britain. After his election defeat, Willkie supported FDR’s Lend Lease and the first peacetime draft.

“Five Days in Philadelphia” helps recreate a critical time in America politics and shines a light on a principled American politician, Wendell Willkie, who deserves credit for helping Britain survive and for helping America prepare for war.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides an interesting account of the republican convention of 1940 and the effects it had on the country. The main contest in 1940 for the republicans was between Dewey, Robert Taft and Wendell Willkie who was a democrat turned republican in the final hours to seize the nomination. Dewey to an extent an Taft to an extreme represented the isolationist part of the republican party. This book takes the reader through the convention and the twists and turns that led to the nomination of Wilkie over Taft. This book provides a scattered analysis at times of the events that followed the Philadelphia convention. This is a great update to those people who have not heard of Wilkie and these events. The book provides a very good political analysis of the time and for those interested in convention history it does tell and interesting story. I wish there had been more related to how the votes switched but at times the book jumped around and skipped over details. Overall a solid book and a great addition to the historical political landscape of America.

[Chris Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Review – Five Days in Philadelphia
The amazing “We want Wilkie” convention of 1940 and how it freed FDR to save the western world.
Charles Peters.
Someone gave me this book. I’m a fan of history but typically not a fan of politics, but this slice of American political nostalgia is a decent read.
It takes us back to a time of great peril in the world. Where France had just surrendered to the blitzkrieging Hitler and Britain was fighting for its life. More than that, it paints a Saturday Evening Post Norman Rockwell sketch of when politics and politicians were decent humans who did what was best for the country.
The author was a prominent journalist and editor in the beltway for decades and remembers many of the vents first-hand. You can tell he has that same nostalgia. You could say he sees this slice of the past through rose-colored, or more appropriately sepia-colored glasses. You remember when politics and political conventions were like a bunch of chaps at a polite football game?
The challenge facing America were many. We had just climbed out of the great depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was finishing up his second term as a progressive president. He was the architect of the New Deal that pumped vast quantities of public money into working class lives.
Coming into the election of 1940 Roosevelt wanted to stay for a 3rd term but he couldn’t be seen as wanting a 3rd term. He and his party bosses architected the Democratic convention to make it seem like he was forced by public acclaim to accept a 3rd term.
There is still only one president to have served more than 2 terms in office. It goes against the American fundamental cultural distaste for regency. FDR pulled it off. He was a gifted man and a gifted politician. One of the joys of the book is to watch his engineering of so many deals and his understanding of the strategic nature of things. He was always 2-3 steps ahead.
Wilkie was a good-old-boy from and Indiana farm. He was barely on the radar when the Republican convention got started. He managed to pull off a ground swell win at the convention through artful politics of his own.
His nomination could only have happened at that point in time. The Republican platform was anti-new deal, but it was also anti-war. All the candidates were against anything that risked putting American boys in foreign wars. The death-filled muddy trenches of WWI were still fresh in this generation’s psyche.
There was one candidate that agreed with Roosevelt on the importance of building a strong defense and supporting Britain in its fight. That candidate was Wendell Wilkie. Although he ultimately lost the election his support of FDR’s fight to prepare for the war they knew was coming went a long way towards saving Britain and getting America ready to fight.
Wilkie could have attacked FDR to gain points, but he didn’t. He supported the trade of 50 destroyers, the lend-lease act and the draft bill. Britain was able to hang on with this aid. American armed forces grew from 50,000 to 1.6M by the time Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
There are many striking things about this era of American politics. I loved how the news papers and those who controlled them were so powerful and able to sway public opinion. They were truly the fourth estate. They were still opinionated and partisan but they seemed to act a bit more gentlemanly.
Both of these men had multiple mistresses. Wilkie was a drinker. But, none of that made it into the news. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a sad thing.
I also loved the value of a good speech. These politicians were great at giving speeches. The people who attended the speeches saw them as a bit of sport and scored them accordingly. One annectdote has Wilkie giving a speech in 104-degree weather to a crowd of 30,000. I don’t think modern Americans could endure such as that for any politician.
I have always eschewed politics as a vile and loathsome sport. This book gives me hope that maybe there is some kernel of good in the American soul, even today.
Chris Russell – April 2, 2018

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew about the story of Wendell Willkie, but before reading this book it had never occurred to me that Willkie's nomination played a role in winning World War II. Peters argues that because of Willkie's support during the 1940 election, President Roosevelt has able to get the draft and military aid to the UK through Congress; by contrast, if the Republican nominee had been an isolationist like Robert Taft, he might have been less successful, possibly causing the Nazis to overrun the UK or making the USA less prepared for the war. Other interesting tidbits:
1. How the "Eastern Establishment" promoted Willkie. Henry Luce promoted Willkie though his ownership of Time and Life, and Wall Street banks occasionally used their economic power to persuade Republican delegates in the hinterlands to support him. On the other hand, the Establishment's power was balanced out by local newspapers. By contrast, today's newspapers are too widely ignored to counterbalance the Murdoch empire (Fox/Wall St. Journal) and right-wing talk radio.
2. Both Nazi and British agents were involved in the 1940 campaign. An antiwar ad in major newspapers, signed by Rep. Hamilton Fish, was written by a German agent. On the other hand, Republican candidate Arthur Vandenberg's mistress was the wife of a British diplomat (which did not prevent Vandenberg from being an isolationist).
3. Roosevelt's power over the Democratic party. 1/3 of delegates voted against his choice for Vice President (Henry Wallace) and a majority might have done so had it not been for Roosevelt's threat to decline the nomination.
4. The lack of prestige of the Vice Presidency. Before Wallace was offered the nomination, Roosevelt asked Cordell Hull, who declined the honor. On the Republican side, Charles McNary (the choice of party bosses who were afraid Willkie's first choice, Raymond Baldwin, would not get midwestern and western votes) had to be persuaded to accept.
5. Despite their pro-British views, both Willkie and Roosevelt promised to avoid war, which in retrospect seems slightly demagogic.

[Annie Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book. It covers a moment in American history that I had never heard about before, the unlikely nomination of Wendell Willkie as the Republican presidential candidate in 1940. This was back when convention delegates actually selected the candidate instead of merely ratifying the result of state primaries. Peters writes fascinating and inspiring history. Willkie's support of aid to Britain against Nazi Germany gave FDR the political support he needed during an election year. How unthinkable in our time, that two opposing candidates for President would publicly agree on foreign policy, but how vital to the eventual defeat of Hitler. A great read!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miracle of Willkie

Excellent telling of the sudden meteoric rise of Wendell Willkie to grab the Republican nomination in 1940. It was truly a miracle that Willkie stepped in to block the Isolationist elements of the GOP at a crucial time. He helped spur the Allied Resistance against the unstoppable Nazi War Machine. FDR was able to get the Arsenal of Democracy up and running with support from Willkie. Wendell Willkie definitely deserves more credit for his part in the Victory over the Axis.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book

[Cassius Rovenstine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:

A wealthy, liberal New York businessman who has never held political office seeks the Republican nomination for President of the United States. He is a man of loose morals who casually cheats on his spouse, and his affiliation with the Republican Party is only as old as his decision to run for president. The national press corps becomes fascinated with his campaign and gives him incalculably valuable free media. His more traditional rivals for the nomination have enough combined strength to defeat him, but their egos prevent them from joining forces. The GOP splits, and the once unlikely insurgent secures the nomination, giving the incumbent Democrats an edge in securing a third term in the White House.

Charles Peters’s Five Days in Philadelphia is not an account of Donald J. Trump’s campaign for the presidency, but for a contemporary reader, it’s difficult to miss the parallels. Wendell L. Willkie, the actual subject of the book, was, of course, a very different candidate from Trump in other respects. While Trump has given the Democrats hope in their quest to retain the White House by virtue of his ignorance of and indifference to key policy issues, Willkie gave the Democrats an edge because he had studiously considered all the major issues of the day – and came out on the same side as President Franklin D. Roosevelt on nearly everyone one of them.

This is all well and good for Peters, who candidly and refreshingly outs himself as a liberal Democrat in the book’s opening chapter. Willkie’s strong support for the Allied cause, in particular, gave Roosevelt cover to advocate for military aid to Great Britain, as well as for a peacetime draft. Any one of Willkie’s Republican rivals – all of whom supported varying degrees of isolationism in foreign policy – would have almost certainly demagogued those issues, appealing to the public wariness of involvement in another world war. Willkie’s nomination was thus hugely consequential for the Republican Party, the United States, and, the author argues persuasively, the entire western world.

The book is concise, fun, and evocative, the author having actually lived through the subject era. It is well worth reading, especially as America flirts with electing another indomitable political newcomer for the highest office in the land.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Peters, author of How Washington Really Works, attended the 1940 Democratic convention as a boy, managed John F. Kennedy's 1960 primary in West Virginia's largest county, then moved to Washington, D.C., to help launch the Peace Corps and found The Washington Monthly. He delivers an inspirational book in our era of scripted political conventions devoid of drama and excitement. Readers of Philip Roth's novel The Plot Against America (**** Nov/Dec 2004), which offers a fictional look at that same campaign, may find Five Days to be the more insightful and imaginative book. Although Peters sometimes gets swept up in hyperbole, he tells an engrossing story in masterful prose.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a recommendation from Mitch Daniels' reading list and did not disappoint. Willkie's upset win of the Republican nomination in 1940 (he was a Democrat for many years prior) over Taft, Vandenberg and Dewey was "a tremendous and historical political revolt of the people against the politicians." As the least isolationist of prominent Republicans, his nomination was critical for the US under FDR to provide aid to Britain via Destroyers-for-Bases and Lend-Lease, for which Willkie was possibly the most critical supporter. The fact that the party conventions were genuinely suspenseful and that delegates could and did shift their votes stands in stark contrast to the current primary/convention system. As an endnote, Willkie was a serial philanderer who drank and smoked himself to an early death.

[Dennis Henn · Rating 4 out of 5]

How does a promiscuous drunk, a Democrat until a year before the election, gain the Republican nomination in 1940? Wilkie,unlike the other Republican candidates that year, favored supporting Britain in its war against Germany.
Interesting to me in this book was how far Roosevelt stretched or broke the law in Imperial fashion to support the New Deal and aid England. How did the isolationist party become the party of war?

[Julian Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting popular history on the 1940 presidential election, specifically the nominating conventions for both parties; Peters makes the argument that Willkie's surprise ascendancy to the GOP nomination was both tremendously unlikely and a major blow to the party's isolationists, which gave FDR a free hand to prepare to defend the Allies in WWII. Very readable; the author has a tendency to intersperse the narrative with his own memories of the campaign as a child (which I appreciated) and repeated references to the pop culture of the time, including baseball, movies, and Will Rogers (which struck me as rather self-indulgent).

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this book as a gift, and there are definitely some factual issues that detract from the book. Also, some personal nostalgia that I believe were an attempt to serve as additional context but come across as forced. Decent historical accounting of a very important period in our history though.

[Ken Ficara]

http://steelbrassnwood.livejournal.co...

[Christine Sermons · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It really transported you back into the atmosphere of the time. I know alot about Roosevelt and admire him but I found Wilkie very likable.

[Leigh Koonce · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic look at the 1940 election! I wasn't very familiar with Wendell Wilkie prior to reading this book, but I like what I learned. Additionally, the author is a Charleston, WV native!

[K.R. Eckert · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best book on American politics I've ever read. Anybody who wants to understand electioneering in the United States should read this book.