The World That Wasn’t Audiobook Libro.fm

From the acclaimed economisthistorian and author of The Marshall Plan a timely riveting The Washington Post new perspective on the political career of Henry Wallaceone that will forever change how we view the making of US and Soviet foreign policy at the dawn of the Cold War

Henry Wallace is the most important and certainly the most fascinating almostpresident in American history As FDRs thirdterm vice president and a hero to many progressives he lost his place on the 1944 Democratic ticket in a wild open convention resulting in Harry Truman becoming president upon FDRs death Books films and even plays have since portrayed the circumstances surrounding Wallaces defeat as corrupt and the results catastrophic Filmmaker Oliver Stone among others has claimed that Wallaces loss ushered in four decades of devastating and unnecessary Cold War

Now based on striking new finds from Russian FBI and other archives Benn Steils The World That Wasnt paints a decidedly less heroic portrait of the man of the events surrounding his fall and of the world that might have been under his presidency Though a brilliant geneticist Henry Wallace was a selfobsessed political figure blind to the manipulations of aidesmany of whom were Soviet agents and assets

From 1933 to 1949 Wallace undertook a series of remarkable interventions abroad each aimed at remaking the world order according to his evolving spiritual blueprint As agriculture secretary he fell under the spell of Russian mystics and used the cover of a plantgathering mission to aid their doomed effort to forge a new theocratic state in Central Asia As vice president he toured a Potemkin Siberian continent guided by undercover Soviet security and intelligence officials who hid labor camps and concealed prisoners He then wrote a book together with an American NKGB journalist source hailing the regions renaissance under Bolshevik leadership In China the Soviets uncovered his private efforts to coax concessions to Moscow from Chiang Kaishek fueling their ambitions to dominate Manchuria Running for president in 1948 he colluded with Stalin to undermine his governments foreign policy allowing the dictator to edit his most important election speech It was not until 1950 that he began to acknowledge his misapprehensions regarding the Kremlins aims and conduct

Meticulously researched and deftly written The World That Wasnt is a spellbinding work that shows how American historyand world historycould have turned out very differently if just a few things had gone the other way The Wall Street Journal