John Morton Blum

Revised and condensed version issued in a 1 v. ed. in 1970 under title: Roosevelt and Morgenthau. Years of crisis, 1928-1938.--Years of urgency, 1938-1941.--Years of war, 1941-1945.

This further pruning and revision has been executed in the interest of the general reader, to provide a shorter edition centered more specifically upon the friendship and collaboration between Morgenthau and FDR, through the Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War. Blum does venture some (largely positive) assessment of Morgenthau's career in his introduction and some generally accepted criticism (of Morgenthau's reluctance to embrace a Keynesian fiscal policy, of his Plan for Germany) in the body of the work. But essentially the emphases, insights, and conclusions are Morgenthau's, and the book closes with his reflections in 1966 about his years in government and what they had meant to him (he died in 1967). For a popular historical work, this is still a fairly dense accounting, with the political far outweighing the personal content. Reasonably accessible, nonetheless, and clearly a major secondary/primary source on the two men and the history they helped shape. - Kirkus Review. Roosevelt and Morgenthau: A Revision and Condensation of From the Morgenthau Diaries condenses and unites in one volume the three volumes offered by Blum between 1957 and 1967. When originally published, they were deservedly heralded for the instructive glimpse they gave of the inside workings of the Roosevelt administration. They seem to have lost none of their luster in abbreviation. The first two volumes deal primarily with fiscal policy. Morgenthau fretted continually about deficit financing and big spending. Paradoxically, he was a conservative on fiscal policy and opposed the very counter-cyclical measures which were at the heart of the New Deal recovery program. But in the end, the heart usually won out over the head and he went along with Roosevelt. By 1938 the story begins to broaden. Morganthau was becoming involved in the foreign policy area, especially where impinged on fiscal policy. In perspective, most of the positions he took stand up rather well. He was among the first to realize the danger posed by the ominous turn of events in Germany and his counsel to the president was rarely tinged with the virus of appeasement so popular among certain State Department and diplomatic personnel. He was an enthusiastic advocate of a complete embargo of all strategic materials to Japan after her suspicious activity in Indochina came to light. He played an important role in the destroyer bases deal and a crucial one in formulating Lend-Lease policy. - Henry L. Feingold, American Jewish Historical Quarterly, v. 60, no. 2 (December 1970), p. 206.

"John Morton Blum provides a behind-the-scenes look at Ivy League education and political power from the 1940s to the 1980s." "Blum insightfully recounts a long and distinguished journey that began at Phillips Academy, where he first realized he could make a career of teaching and writing history. He tells how young men were socialized to the values of the Northeastern establishment in those years before World War II, and how as a non-practicing Jew he learned to over-come bigotry both at Andover and at Harvard, which then had no Jewish professors." "In 1957 Blum joined the faculty of Yale University's history department, widely regarded as the nation's best, where he became both influential and popular and where his students included one future president as well as others who aspired to the office. He reveals much about the inner workings of Ivy League education and tells of controversies over the Vietnam War and the Black Panthers, his role in Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign, and how he searched for common ground between reactionary faculty and radical students." "More than a recounting of a singular life, Blum's story explains how political history was researched and written during the second half of the twentieth century, describing how the discipline evolved, gained ascendancy, and was challenged as historical fashions changed. It also offers revealing glimpses of such prominent academics as Kingman Brewster, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., C. Vann Woodward, and William Sloan Coffin."--BOOK JACKET.