| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War against Nazi Germany. By Steven Casey. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. xxvi, 302 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-19-513960-7.)

Among the many firsts that Franklin D. Roosevelt scored as a president, his skillful dealings with the media and his unprecedented use of the latest means of gauging public opinion have long attracted historians' attention. Likewise, many scholars have studied the interaction of public opinion and American foreign policy. Steven Casey's study on FDR, public opinion, and the war against Germany thus joins a veritable library of scholarship on the topic.

Casey explores how FDR perceived domestic public opinion on Germany during the war, how he tried to mold it to his own conception of Nazism, and how he took public sentiment into account when making decisions. The author wants to show that only in hindsight did World War II become a widely popular crusade. At the time, though, FDR had to lead a cautious propaganda campaign against popular attitudes that remained more restrained toward the foe than he needed them to be in order to push for total victory. The book focuses exclusively on policy makers, and it relies heavily on contemporary public opinion polls as well as presidential and other official papers.

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