some truly awful 1000-page tomes out there. Still, this book is a member of the elite Oxford History of the United States series, so the expectation is high to begin with. And 'Freedom from Fear' is one of the best in the series. Kennedy took on a vast task, writing about the entire FDR-plus era, from the pre-crash days of Herbert Hoover to the conclusion of WW2 after FDR's death. For the most part, Kennedy does an outstanding job. Neithe ...more Thud factor alone does not make a book great, as there are some truly awful 1000-page tomes out there. Still, this book is a member of the elite Oxford History of the United States series, so the expectation is high to begin with. And 'Freedom from Fear' is one of the best in the series. Kennedy took on a vast task, writing about the entire FDR-plus era, from the pre-crash days of Herbert Hoover to the conclusion of WW2 after FDR's death. For the most part, Kennedy does an outstanding job. Neither hagiography nor FDR-bashing, this history gives a good sense of the helplessness of the 1930s, and how Roosevelt helped create a culture of hope. Kennedy emphasizes the obvious lesson that the New Deal did not really lead to recovery from the Depression, but he underscores the more subtle point that the creation of institutions like the Securities and Exchange Commission helped to keep capitalism from destroying itself. Thus, FDR was not the socialist that haters insist he