Prosperity Road: America, 1920–1945, from Hoover to Roosevelt

by Anthony J. Badger

A sweeping history of America during the tumultuous decades between the ends of World War I and World War II, when a mainly rural, isolationist republic was transformed into a nuclear superpower and the leader of the free world.

Through the prosperous 1920s and its culture wars to the Great Crash and Depression of the Thirties, the fits and starts of the New Deal, and then the all-consuming fight to defeat fascism in World War II, the twenty-five years from 1920 through 1945 witnessed the creation of what would be known as the American century. Two towering political figures, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D Roosevelt, dominated the politics of these years in which America underwent a breathtaking metamorphosis, with all its power and its predominance on the global stage, its increasingly imperial government, its unprecedented affluence, and its far-flung cultural influence.

Prosperity Road captures in telling detail how war and the experiences of economic boom and bust shaped America’s political expectations and its institutions. Written by acclaimed Cambridge historian Anthony J Badger, Prosperity Road is cultural, economic, and political history at its finest and most captivating.

Other books in the American History series

Ecstatic Nation by Brenda Wineapple
Rebirth of a Nation by Jackson Lears
Walking Giant by David S. Reynolds
The Age of Reagan by Sean Wilentz

Audible Audio

Expected publication October 13, 2026

About the author

Anthony John "Tony" Badger is a British academic and historian. Until 2014 he was Paul Mellon Professor of American History at Cambridge University and Master of Clare College, Cambridge.