Racing Against Time: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over Saving Britain and Going to War

Washington History Seminar
Historical Perspectives on International and National Affairs

"Racing Against Time: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over Saving Britain and Going to War"

Lynne Olson
AUTHOR OF CITIZENS OF LONDON AND THOSE ANGRY DAYS

Today, we think of World War II as the "good war" – a necessary conflict to save Western civilization from the evil of Nazi Germany. But in the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, the extent of that evil was not as obvious as it is now. From 1939 to 1941, millions of Americans were swept up in a passionate, bitterly fought debate over what America's role should be in the war. Should the country forsake its traditional isolationism and come to the aid of Britain, then on the brink of defeat by Hitler? Or should it go further and enter the war? At stake was not only Britain's survival but the very shape and future of America.

Before Lynne Olson began writing books full time, she worked more than ten years as a journalist, including stints as Moscow correspondent for the Associated Press and White House correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. Author of six works of history, she has been described by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as "our era's foremost chronicler of World War II politics and diplomacy." Her books include the national bestseller Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood With Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour. Her latest, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941, was a New York Times bestseller and was named by the Times as one of its 100 Notable Books of 2013.

Monday February 10, 2014
4:00 p.m. 
Woodrow Wilson Center, 5th Floor Conference Room
Ronald Reagan Building, Federal Triangle Metro Stop

Reservations requested because of limited seating:
mbarber@historians.org or 202-450-3209

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Wilson Center. It meets weekly during the academic year. See www.nationalhistorycenter.org for the schedule, speakers, topics, and dates as well as webcasts and podcasts. The seminar thanks the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations for its support.