"Fools, Drunks, and the United States": August 12, 1941 (Bapton Books History Selections, #4)

by Markham Pyle

Overview

This is the story of America on August 12, 1941, four months before Pearl Harbor. Isolationism was still strong, FDR was hammering out the Atlantic Charter with Churchill (to the fury of America Firsters), the Japanese were ready to kick off a war, most Americans were more interested in baseball and radio shows than in a distant conflict, and Congress decided to keep the draft - by one vote.

Markham Shaw Pyle's snapshot of America on a day more fateful than any then knew is the story of farmers and big-league ballplayers, spies, editors, whores, Congressmen, housewives, and disgruntled draftees; of events in Europe, massacres in China, and Japanese war plans; and of "Mister Sam," House Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas, trying to get the draft extension through, come Hell or high water.

From border radio stations to Ebbets Field, from Congress to cruisers at sea; from Maine to Texas, Hatteras to the Golden Gate and far Hawaii, this is the rough music of America's serenade by destiny.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940044329355
Publisher:	Bapton Books
Publication date:	02/15/2013
Series:	Bapton Books History Selections
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	185 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Markham Shaw Pyle holds his undergraduate and law degrees from Washington & Lee. He is a past or current member of, inter alia, the Organization of American Historians; the Society for Military History; the Southern Historical Association; the Southwestern Social Science Association; the Southwestern Historical Association; the Southwestern Political Science Association; the Virginia Historical Society; and the Texas State Historical Association. He is the historian of Congress' August 1941 vote to keep the draft four months before Pearl Harbor and, with GMW Wemyss, the historian of the Titanic enquiries and that portentous year 1937, and the annotator of Kipling and Kenneth Grahame.