UNLIKELY HEROES | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation
Date and Time
Mar 20, 2023 6:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Mar 20, 2023 6:00 pm
14th & V
Author Derek Leebaert provides an entirely new understanding of Franklin Roosevelt and his presidency in UNLIKELY HEROES. Only four people served at the top echelon of FDR’s administration from the frightening early months of spring 1933 until he died in April 1945, and they composed the tough, constructive, long-term core of government. These lieutenants built the great institutions raised against the Depression, implemented the New Deal, and were pivotal to winning World War II.
By no coincidence, each was as wounded in their different ways as the polio-stricken titan. Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, and Henry Wallace were also strange outsiders. Up until 1933, none would have been considered for high office. Still, each became a world figure, and it would have been exceedingly difficult for Roosevelt to transform the nation without them.
By examining the lives of these four, a very different picture of how Americans saved their democracy and rescued civilization overseas emerges. Many of the dangers they overcame are troublingly like those we face today.
Derek Leebaert is joining us on the Busboys stage to share how Americans saved their democracy and rescued civilization overseas. Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Leebaert will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of UNLIKELY HEROES will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is IN PERSON and will NOT be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
Derek Leebaert won the biennial 2020 Truman Book Award for Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945–1957. His previous books include Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy from Korea to Afghanistan and To Dare and to Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, both Washington Post Best Books of the Year. He was a founding editor of the Harvard/MIT journal International Security and is a cofounder of the National Museum of the United States Army. He holds a D.Phil from Oxford and lives in Washington, D.C.
