The idea that race and racism has played a prominent role in shaping our historical trajectory in the United States should come as no surprise to any political scientist or even most of the public at large. One need only see how race and racism figures into the governing strategies and constraints of President Barack Obama to understand its continued significance. Yet somehow, the importance of race to an understanding of our national story is routinely disputed and has often been neglected in much of the work defined as “American political development.” To be sure, political scientists such as Rogers Smith, Robert Lieberman, Paul Frymer, Megan Francis, and Desmond King have all written important texts that make prominent the nation’s sins and silences around race. However, in Fear Itself, Ira Katznelson, using painstaking research and accessible prose, insists that we take another look at “the greatest generation,” this time through the frames of race and fear. When we do, we quickly confront the truth that racism not only was the “logic” that molded the Jim Crow South but also was sewn into the fabric of the New Deal era and the policies that define the Great Society.

Katznelson centers this work on the New Deal era, arguing that this period of Democratic Party rule from 1932 to the beginning of the Eisenhower presidency represented one of the greatest challenges to liberal democracy the nation has ever encountered. More conventional accounts of this period tell a story of not just survival but inspiration. We are told that during the New Deal era, the country withstood both domestic and global crises to reemerge as a shining example of the persistence of liberal democracy. Not so fast, Katznelson tells us. At the heart of the book is the author’s commitment to making visible the “dirty hands,” in particular of southern Democrats who worked to undermine democratic principles of equality while simultaneously using their political heft to usher in the policies of the New Deal. The politics of this era is, as any good academic would tell you, a more complicated story than often reported. And so Katznelson goes about the work of peeling back the layers of compromise and concession that make up the New Deal era.

In the pages of Fear Itself, the racist structure of the Jim Crow South is detailed in all its ignorance and vitriol. This book depicts the reach and depth of racism embedded in the nation’s governing apparatus during this period. Southern Democrats were willing to support Franklin D.Roosevelt’s expansionist agenda so long as it refrained from disrupting the system of terror and exploitation that reigned over blacks in the South. This is not a new story for many readers, or for Katznelson himself. However, in this book he is unflinching in his portrayal of the depth of the South’s “racial order suffused with beliefs and practices signifying white dominance and black inferiority in all spheres of life” (p. 134).

Yet the Jim Crow South is not the only compromised subject in this detailed exposition of the distasteful and ugly concessions made by seemingly infallible leaders such as Roosevelt. We cannot escape the uncomfortable fact that time and again, the country’s political leaders sacrificed fundamental democratic principles such as equality in search of governing coalitions that would support their policies. In the most powerful parts of the book, Katznelson repeatedly demonstrates how one of the country’s greatest policy accomplishments, the New Deal, was made possible by bargaining away the futures and rights of black people. For example, southern Democrats insisted on the exclusion and segregation of blacks in a range of New Deal policies, including the omission of largely black agricultural and domestic workers from the original structure of Social Security, if they were to provide critical support for Roosevelt’s broad policy agenda. And repeatedly, the president maintained his allegiance to southern Democrats and their Jim Crow South in order to secure their votes. Roosevelt’s “deal with the devil” is manifested most forcefully in his silence on the lynching of black people. Walter White, then secretary of the NAACP, recounts how FDR justified his lack of intervention during a Senate filibuster of an antilynching bill, telling him, “I’ve got to get legislation passed by Congress to save America. . . . If I come out for the anti-lynching bill, [the Southerners] will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing. I just can’t take that risk” (p. 160).

While I believe that Fear Itself is a compelling book, there are, of course, omissions that are important to point out. For example, Katznelson has admittedly written a book focused on political elites during this era. Thus, often missing in the historical accounts of this period is the tireless work pursued by activists and organizations, often in black communities, to counter the racial hegemony of the South and the racist exclusions in New Deal legislation. To be clear, examples of the work of organizations like the NAACP are found throughout the book; however, there is no sustained engagement with the broader sphere of oppositional politics developing during this era, especially as a precursor to the Civil Rights movement. Similarly, while some readers might rightfully make the case that the racism of the North is underexamined in this text, Katznelson points out early in the book that he understands that “race was embedded as a mark of division in every region”; however, his attention focused on the South, describing their system of racial exclusion as “singular” (p. 15).

For many readers, the arguments in this tome will be new. Yet for those who study race or are interested in the ways that race has shaped the nation, the arguments will be familiar. That said, there is a specificity and detail in Fear Itself that will bring new insights for all readers. This book is an example of unpretentious and rigorous scholarship that is meant to engage a wider audience without minimizing its academic importance. In an age when political science has increasingly become insular, with more attention often paid to method than substance, it is refreshing to read such an immaculately researched and beautifully written text, which will enrich both the academy and the public sphere.