Overview

A penetrating examination of the consequences of the Second World War which draws uncomfortable parallels with the world in which we live today. 'A gripping, behind-the-curtain story of the men and women who rebuilt the world after the carnage of World War II-and, in the process, engineered an age of unprecedented peace and prosperity. A must-read for anyone trying to understand how stability is built, how prosperity scales, and how we can protect what those architects created. Essential reading for anyone who cares about leadership and the future.' Anthony Scaramucci, former White House Communications Director ______ Although the Second World War was still a long way from being won, even by early 1941, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was already planning for peace. America's entry of the war may still have been almost a year away, but he could already see the new world order that needed to emerge from the smouldering ashes of Europe. The business of war was very quickly going to have to become the business of peace. Three years later, under the guidance of his successor, President Harry S. Truman, the Marshall Plan would emerge, a forward-thinking combination of global philanthropy and canny self-interest, rooted in a profound sense of Christian and moral duty, and which kickstarted unprecedented European growth and a chance for the world as a whole to rebuild after the ruinous catastrophe of war. From the world on the eve of war in 1914 through to the Versailles Treaty and the global financial catastrophe of the late 1920s and early thirties, and the political earthquakes that followed, The Visionaries takes a broad sweep of history with important lessons for today. It's a reminder that while history does not repeat itself, patterns of human behaviour certainly do. James Holland's knowledge of the Second World War and its aftermath gives him unique insight into the far-reaching consequences of the financial policies of Roosevelt and Truman. The sustained period of economic stability they initiated delivered peace to the western democracies for over eighty years and stand in stark contrast to our transactional approach to the world today.

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9780857509727

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Reviews

James Holland has delivered a masterwork. The Visionaries is the gripping, behind-the-curtain story of the men and women who rebuilt the world after the carnage of World War II—and, in the process, engineered an age of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Holland shows that the postwar order didn’t happen by accident; it was designed with courage, clarity, and an audacious belief in human progress. This book reminds us that leadership matters, ideas matter, and that vision—real vision—can bend the arc of history. A must-read for anyone trying to understand how stability is built, how prosperity scales, and how we can protect what those architects created. Essential reading for anyone who cares about leadership and the future. -- Anthony Scaramucci, former White House Communications Director

Author Information

James Holland is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning historian, writer, and broadcaster. The author of a number of best-selling histories including most recently The Savage Storm and Cassino '44, he is also the author of ten works of fiction and a dozen Ladybird Experts. He is the co-founder of the annual Chalke Valley History Festival which is now in its twelfth year, and he has presented - and written - many television programmes and series for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic and the History and Discovery channels. With Al Murray, he has a successful Second World War podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, which also has its own festival, and is a research fellow at St Andrew's University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He can be found on Twitter as @James1940 and on Instagram as @jamesholland1940.

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