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The Arsenal Of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, And An Epic Quest To Arm An America At War (2014)

by A.J. Baime(Favorite Author)

4.37 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0547719280 (ISBN13: 9780547719283)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

review 1: A history of How places like Detroit, General Motors and Ford took manufacturing to the next level in WWII and turned America into a huge armaments giant that could steamroll the axis and turn the U.S. into an economic powerhouse that accounted for half of the worlds production output in 1945. It is about the major players, Henry Ford and his sons Edsel Ford and Henry Ford II, Alfred P. Sloan at GM and the Roosevelt administration. These men often hostile and competing came together to make an unbeatable juggernaut.
review 2: A fantastic tale of how American industry responded to the threat of World War II and how one family of entrepreneurs - Henry and Edsel Ford - were deeply divided by the issue. The heroes of this saga are FDR, Edsel Ford and American worke... morers: Roosevelt for his foresight and audacious imagination, Ford for his courage and patriotism, and American engineers and workers for responding to the challenge. Patriarch Henry Ford is portrayed as a truly evil bastard. In the 1930s, he wrote a hate-filled book of bigotry, that was translated into German and became an inspiration for the Nazis. Early in WWII, Edsel negotiated a handshake deal to manufacture airplane engines for the Brits. Henry killed the deal, even though his German subsidiary manufactured trucks for the German army. Henry fought Edsel's proposal to construct the historic Willow Run factory to built airplanes (B-24 Liberators) for US troops. In the end, Edsel won out, the plant was built, and Ford assembled thousands of the aircraft that were instrumental in winning the war. I have to wonder why school kids are taught to regard Henry Ford as some kind of model American hero? less

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