Descripción
THE BRAINS TRUST, Rexford Guy Tugwell, hardcover with unclipped dust jacket, first edition, 1968. BOOK CONDITION: very good. The text block is in fine condition, with no tears, dogears, or marks. No bookplate or signature of a prior owner. Not a library book or remainder. The boards are in very good condition (lightly bumped spine and corners, 2-inch light crease in spine). The dust jacket is in good condition (light chipping along top and bottom edges, discolored area on back cover). 8 ¾ x 6, 538 pages, 30 ounces XX [from the dust jacket] An absorbing account of history in the making, writes former Senator Paul Douglas of The Brains Trust, Rexford Guy Tugwell's first-hand narrative of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1932 campaign for the Presidency. As history, the book covers a period of only eight months, from March 1932 to election day, but those were critical months. It was the time when the depression seemed to have become a destructive force beyond human control, when middle-class Americans believed in the imminence of revolution (and laid in stocks of canned goods to carry them through). It was also the time of a Chicago convention that might have led to the death of the Democratic Party but instead gave it the new energy for victory, after sixty-eight years of being a minority. Part of this revitalization was due to Roosevelt's decision to obtain advice from the academic community; the establishment of the Brains Trust brought about a remarkable and highly effective change in the strategy of Presidential campaigning. Tugwell was part of this newly formed Brains Trust. He became Roosevelt's closest confidant without ever being a yes-man, and because he lacked knowledge of the political scene he was a sharp-eyed observer. Still wondering, admiring, but questioning, even dismayed, he has here written an extraordinary portrait of what a democratic leader must be and what he must pay in personal terms to lead. The Brains Trust is thus biography as well as history, but it is perhaps most important as a handbook of Presidential politics. It shows what one must do to be nominated, to be elected by an overwhelming majority; it shows the powers that must be conciliated, the policies that must be adopted, the image that must be projected to the voters, and by what means. The fact that Tugwell was a political innocent when he first met Roosevelt makes the story all the more instructive; as he learns, the reader learns. Tugwell provides the answers to such fascinating questions as why a cruise along the New England coast, during which Roosevelt made no political speeches, was an important part of his campaign; why he continued to make speeches against the advice of the politicos; his opinion of Herbert Hoover; his theory of Presidential power. This inside account is a fascinating and important view of the operations of a political genius, who set an example that all later Presidents have followed. XX REXFORD GUY TUGWELL was born in 1891 in Sinclairsville, New York, and educated at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his Ph.D. in economics in 1922. He served under the President as Under-Secretary of Agriculture from 1934 to 1937. He was appointed Governor of Puerto Rico in 1941. Mr. Tugwell is the author of nearly twenty books. N° de ref. del artículo 002524
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