Roosevelt to Reagan Suggested Reading List
Laura Wittern-Keller
(Important and highly recommended books in bold)
1. Three books that in total cover the entire era of liberalism. I recommend reading them in
this order
a. Kennedy, David. Freedom from Fear: the American People in Depression and
War. Oxford, 2005.
b. Patterson, James. Grand Expectations: the United States 1945-1974. Oxford,
1996.
c. Patterson, James. Restless Giant: the United States from Watergate to Bush v.
Gore. Oxford, 2005.
2. Kennedy, David M. “Don’t Blame Hoover,” Stanford Alumni Magazine,
January/February 1998. Available at:
http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=41554
3. Brands, H. W. Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. New York: Anchor Books, 2009.
4. Perkins, Frances. The Roosevelt I Know. Harper Collins, 1964.
5. Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: the Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Dust
Bowl. Marriner, 2006.
6. Leuchtenburg, William. In the Shadow of FDR. Cornell University Press, 1983.
7. Katznelson, Ira. When Affirmative Action Was White. W.W. Norton, 2005.
8. Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963. New York: Back Bay
Books, 2004.
9. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. Random House, 1969.
10. Caro, Robert A. The Passage of Power. The Years of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 2012.
11. Miroff, Bruce. The Liberals’ Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity
Crisis of the Democratic Party. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
12. Mackenzie, G. Calvin and Weisbrot, Robert. The Liberal Hour: Washington and the
Politics of Change in the 1960s / New York: Penguin Press, 2008.