Overview

""As with sailing, so with politics: make your cloth too taut and your ship will dip and heel, but slacken off and trim your sails, and things head up again."" - Euripides, Orestes The Great Depression of the 1930s and the global crisis of World War II created ripe conditions for change in both US and international politics, setting off many questions regarding America's role in the world. The power and influence held by the United States at this time informed Franklin Roosevelt's belief that the country was optimally positioned to become a world leader. As such, his decisions and actions preceding the war were a critical juncture in twentieth-century US foreign policy and responsible for the nation's eventual entrance into the war. Scholarship often presents the 32nd President as an isolationist with little continuity or initiative in his approach to world politics. Based on a new, interpretive framework, however, FDR's actions take on a more purposeful tack. The Sailor: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Transformation of American Foreign Policy, 1933-1945 examines Roosevelt's worldview and political ideology throughout his career to understand how they shaped the policies he developed in response to the crises that arose during his presidency. Author David Schmitz explains why Roosevelt found the traditional foreign policy of neutrality inadequate and shows how the president spurred a new, internationalist approach in the United States' dealings with other actors on the global stage. Arguing against existing scholarship that suggests FDR rarely made informed foreign policy decisions, Schmitz claims that the president was consistent and calculating in his outlook and actions involving international affairs and the direction of American foreign policy. Guided by a vision of peace and American security, Schmitz argues that Roosevelt pursued a ""Third Way"" between imperialism and revolution: a pro-Western nationalism built upon organized, international collaboration with a focus toward promoting and protecting American values and institutions. Schmitz shows how Roosevelt intentionally carried out this vision in the hopes of bringing about ""an end to the beginnings of all wars."" The Sailor is an important interpretive analysis of the Roosevelt administration's foreign policy. By challenging previously held assumptions, Schmitz constructs a new narrative about FDR's overall attitude to the US and its role in a postwar world. He shows how FDR successfully transformed US neutrality into US internationalism, forever changing the direction of American foreign policy. This work will appeal to scholars and general readers alike, specifically, those interested in Franklin Roosevelt, World War II, and American foreign relations.

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9780813180441

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Reviews

Schmitz rightly observes that the last major book covering the entirety of FDR's foreign policy appeared forty years ago. This subject is particularly fitting for a new treatment, and Schmitz's assessment of Roosevelt as a consistent internationalist who was crucial in leading America to the path it adopted in the years after 1945 is persuasive. This is a story that needs to be retold, and the author is particularly well-equipped to tell it. -- Steven Casey, author of The War Beat Europe: The American Media at War against Nazi Germany The Sailor is a piece of solid, thoughtful, important scholarship. Schmitz challenges the long-standing argument that Franklin Roosevelt was a realist opportunist who simply reacted to world events and successfully demonstrates that FDR developed a consistent foreign policy. -- Warren Kimball, Robert Treat Professor of History (emeritus) at Rutgers University and author of The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman With his considerable analytical talents, intellectual depth, and decades of scholarship, David Schmitz brings clarity to our understanding of the illusive FDR. Many have tried, Schmitz succeeds, and the result is definitive. The Sailor breaks new ground by portraying Roosevelt as a true progressive internationalist who shaped the next three-quarters of a century of policy. Lucky for the United States to have both a visionary and pragmatic admiral who navigated the nation to the sane ground of internationalism. -- Thomas W. Zeiler, University of Colorado Boulder

Schmitz rightly observes that the last major book covering the entirety of FDR's foreign policy appeared forty years ago. This subject is particularly fitting for a new treatment, and Schmitz's assessment of Roosevelt as a consistent internationalist who was crucial in leading America to the path it adopted in the years after 1945 is persuasive. This is a story that needs to be retold, and the author is particularly well-equipped to tell it. -- Steven Casey, author of The War Beat Europe: The American Media at War against Nazi Germany The Sailor is a piece of solid, thoughtful, important scholarship. Schmitz challenges the long-standing argument that Franklin Roosevelt was a realist opportunist who simply reacted to world events and successfully demonstrates that FDR developed a consistent foreign policy. -- Warren Kimball, Robert Treat Professor of History (emeritus) at Rutgers University and author of The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman

Author Information

David F. Schmitz is the Robert Allen Skotheim Chair of History at Whitman College. He is the author of several books, including Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century and The Triumph of Internationalism: Franklin D. Roosevelt and a World in Crisis, 1933--1941. He lives in Walla Walla, Washington.

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