Fear Itself: A Brief Analysis

It should not come as a surprise that Fear Itself encapsulated issues of fear in both the public and private lives of the American citizens. Ira Katznelson did not shy away from the fear-laden issues that plagued the citizens, instead, he embraced it and showed how it led to shaping the ideologies of the time. New Dealers accepted a plethora of compromises in the attempts to protect the ideals surrounding liberal democracy, global security, and capitalism (market-based). Katznelson showed how perception of political, social, and economic instability fired up the engine of legislative creation during the New Deal era. Katznelson portrayed Congress as the primary figure of the New Deal era, a major shift from the venerated picture painted of the time. Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Hoover, …show more content…
“By elevating the New Deal to a global drama, the book refuses to treat domestic and international affairs as disconnected subjects” (p. 9). The New Deal only makes sense when viewed next to the efficiency and mass acceptance of totalitarianism in Europe. Perhaps the most striking portion of the novel details the approach the US made to Italy (fascist) during the thirties and how national leaders viewed the Mussolini crafted state his followers as an example of how to escape the gloom of the Great Depression. Instead of witnessing the federal government weaken the rights of the states, southern lawmakers heralded values to delay the radical elements of the New Deal. In Europe when the war had broken out, lawmakers came up with a foreign policy that intervened the first crusade, as a section of isolationism and an affirmation of democratic values globally. Persisting long after World War II, these ideals provided the foundation for a state that demanded national security and loyalty that did not