Review: Awakening the Spirit of America

Awakening the Spirit of America
FDR’s War of Words With Charles Lindbergh―and the Battle to Save Democracy
By Paul M. Sparrow
Pegasus, 2024. 304 pages.

Imagine a Europe ravaged by war and a United States torn between isolationists and interventionists. The year is 1939, and the stage is set for an epic battle of words between President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and isolationists led by Charles Lindbergh. In Paul M. Sparrow’s book Awakening the Spirit of America, the public debates and rhetorical volleys are set against the background of the Second World War and domestic turmoil.

Sparrow provides a compelling description of those tumultuous years and the rhetorical battle between conflicting ideas. He argues that America’s support for the United Kingdom and the allied cause was not inevitable but the result of conscious effort by FDR and his supporters to awaken Americans to their moral sensibilities and the dangers of fascism.

Sparrow is the former director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and brings a wealth of knowledge on the President to this book. He vividly recounts how FDR and Lindbergh were complex individuals with distinct beliefs and personalities.

Roosevelt is described as trying to lead a country woefully prepared for the coming storm, while straining against a congress and a public who do not understand the danger from Nazi Germany. Through public speeches, media interviews, his famous “fireside chats”, and clever political cunning, FDR used his rhetorical skills to push the country in an interventionist direction.

Conversely, Lindbergh stalks Roosevelt throughout the book as his primary antagonist and the speaker of the isolationist movement. Using his fame and considerable charisma, Lindbergh was often provided space by isolationists and anti-Roosevelt media moguls and industrialists to publicly rebuke Roosevelt and his interventionist position. Simultaneously, Lindbergh received help from antisemitic or pro-Nazi elements who wanted to use him to amplify their message.

Sparrow documents these dueling narratives, and it provides a fascinating insight into the political debate of the time. It also documents the monumental task FDR faced in trying to bring the country about to seeing the evil of Nazi Germany and the need to confront it. While public opinion eventually turned in favor of Roosevelt, he spent years fighting an uphill battle against isolationist sentiment and American prejudice.

Additionally, this book explores the ideological turmoil and foreign authoritarian influence in 1930s America. Some of the most interesting movements detailed in the book are the collaboration between Lindbergh, the isolationist movement, and pro-Nazi agitators.

Readers will also be surprised by the echoes of modern struggles with propaganda and disinformation in political discourse. When Roosevelt spoke of “certain techniques of propaganda, created and developed in dictator countries, have been imported into this campaign,” he referred indirectly to Nazi-funded misinformation campaigns which had links to prominent Americans, including members of Congress.

However, the book is not entirely without flaws. Although Sparrow frames the narrative as a head-to-head struggle between Franklin Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh, Lindbergh occasionally slips from view while lesser isolationists, or lengthy excursions into Roosevelt’s wider presidential record, take center stage. These digressions are most obvious when Sparrow turns to FDR’s domestic agenda. For example, Sparrow makes multiple digressions to explore FDR’s record on civil rights, particularly events leading up to Executive Order 8802. While it was a significant step toward ensuring equal employment opportunities for all Americans, it received no counterpoint from the isolationist side and feels somewhat detached from the book’s central debate between Lindbergh and FDR.

Despite these flaws, Sparrow demonstrates that the morally correct decision to prepare for a confrontation with the fascist powers and to defend higher moral principles was not an inevitable force of history. Whether these Americans were well-intentioned citizens who Roosevelt referred to a “…small group of sincere, patriotic men and women whose real passion for peace has shut their eyes to the ugly realities of international banditry and to the need to resist it at all costs” or ideological allies of totalitarian regimes, there were significant elements in American society that favored the position of the isolationists. However, that fate was avoided due to strong leadership from FDR and a bipartisan effort of Americans to reawaken what Roosevelt termed the “spirit of America” and reject the evil arising from malicious actors, both foreign and domestic.

Overall, Sparrow offers a brisk, accessible portrait of 1930s America and FDR’s uphill battle to shift public opinion. FDR’s story shows how principled leadership can rekindle a nation’s sense of purpose in the face of moral apathy. Readers will gain clear insight into a pivotal moment of history and wrestle with important questions regarding the spirit of America.

More from IRD:

Watch IRD President Mark Tooley’s interview with Paul Sparrow, author of Awakening the Spirit of America: FDR’s War of Words With Charles Lindbergh—and the Battle to Save Democracy here.