August 2024

Editor’s Note: Ronald K.L. Collins is a retired law professor, noted legal scholar, and the author or co-author of 13 books. He recently published Tragedy on Trial: The Story of the Infamous Emmett Till Murder Trial based on the discovery of long-lost transcripts of the trial proceedings. His book was called “groundbreaking” by Janai Nelson, CEO of the NAACP Legal Defence Fund, and Congressman Bobby Rush hailed it as “a long-overdue and indispensable account of the 1955 trial."  

Editor’s Note: Paul M. Sparrow is the former Director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. He has recently published Awakening the Spirit of America: FDR's War of Words With Charles Lindbergh — and the Battle to Save Democracy, which tells the dramatic story of how Roosevelt prepared the nation for the fight to save democracy at a time when most Americans opposed intervention, and the America First movement fought aggressively to thwart his efforts. Mr. Sparrow provides an adaptation from his fascinating book in the essay that follows.

Editor's Note: Michael Mandelbaum is professor emeritus at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the author most recently of The Titans of the Twentieth Century: How They Made History and the History They Made, a study of Wilson, Lenin, Hitler, Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gandhi, Ben-Gurion, and Mao, just published by Oxford University Press, from which this essay was adapted.