"Matthew Dallek's powerful history of America's wartime needs from civil defense to homeland security is urgently needed now. "Immensely readable `Defenseless' is a meticulous account of an epic battle that set Roosevelt, the first lady, against La Guardia, the mayor of New York, as the two created the country's first Office of Civilian Defense (OCD), the precursor to what we know today as the Department of Homeland Security They ignited an important conversation about liberalism and its role in times of crisis."-Washington Post Rarely do readers get to experience the unique combination of fascinating history, contemporary relevance, drama, and intrigue in wonk-policy detail in a single, enjoyable work Dallek (GWU) takes readers through all of the touch points, which actually read like modern headlines in The New York Times: government propaganda, militarized civilian life, competing political visions for national defense, and the evolution of national security into the public consciousness."- Choice Drawing from a broad range of primary and secondary sources, Dallek, Assistant Professor of Political Management at George Washington University, focuses his attention on the personalities at the top of the OCD as well as the politics surrounding its creation and development."-Jourden Travis Moger, Naval Historical Foundation FDR created the OCD less than six months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. "The fascinating story of the rise and fall of the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD), America's first federal office of homeland security. The tradition, as historian Matthew Dallek shows in a fascinating new book, 'Defenseless Under The Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security,' goes back to the fear Americans felt in the 1930s."- Newsday "Following sudden and unexpected assaults, presidents of all ideological stripes typically call on the public not to be afraid. "Dallek provides us with a haunting account, one highly relevant to the anxiety-ridden nation of today."- H-Diplo "Dallek's book is a good reminder of how far the impact of war reaches beyond the population of men and women in uniform."-Robert Earnest Miller, The Journal of American History The result is a gripping account of the origins of national security, which will interest anyone with a passion for modern American political history and the history of homeland defense. Through the history of the OCD, Dallek examines constitutional questions about civil liberties, the role and power of government propaganda, the depth of militarization of civilian life, the quest for a wartime New Deal, and competing liberal visions for American national defense - questions that are still relevant today. Their replacement, James Landis, would go on to recruit over ten million volunteers to participate in civilian defense, ultimately creating the largest volunteer program in World War II America. While La Guardia focused on preparing the country against foreign attack and militarizing the civilian population, Eleanor Roosevelt insisted that the OCD should primarily focus on establishing a wartime New Deal, what she and her allies called "social defense." Unable to reconcile their visions, both were forced to leave the OCD in 1942. In Defenseless Under the Night, Matthew Dallek reveals the dramatic history behind America's first federal office of homeland security, tracing the debate about the origins of national vulnerability to the rise of fascist threats during the Roosevelt years. Yet within a year, amid competing visions and clashing ideologies of wartime liberalism, a frustrated FDR pressured both to resign. At its head, Roosevelt appointed New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt became assistant director. To protect Americans from foreign and domestic threats, Roosevelt warned Americans that "the world has grown so small" and eventually established the precursor to the Department of Homeland Security - an Office of Civilian Defense (OCD). Roosevelt declared that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Yet even before Pearl Harbor, Americans feared foreign invasions, air attacks, biological weapons, and, conversely, the prospect of a dictatorship being established in the United States. In his 1933 inaugural address, Franklin D. Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Global Public Health.
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The European Society of Cardiology Series.Oxford Commentaries on International Law.