The World That Wasn’t: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century

Steil (The Marshall Plan), a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, offers a meticulous biography of Henry Wallace, a politician and government official during the 1930s and ’40s. Steil sets out to paint a less heroic picture of Wallace than previous biographers, criticizing his involvement with spiritualism, his naive trust in the Soviet Union, and his connections to the American Communist Party, among other issues. Wallace’s first interest was in scientific farming, and as secretary of agriculture under Franklin Roosevelt, he was responsible for major changes in farm policy, including attempts to increase crop prices by reducing production. During his tenure, he incorporated spiritualism, or Theosophy, into his policymaking; he involved a “guru,” Nicholas Roerich, in plans to create a cooperative farming system in Central Asia, which fell through when Roerich was accused of fraud. Wallace was later elected FDR’s vice president but was demoted to secretary of commerce because his eccentricity and leftism made him unpopular among Democratic party elites; he was fired by Harry Truman in 1946 after giving a speech, “The Way to Peace,” that urged conciliatory policies toward the Soviet Union. Drawing on new materials from FBI and Soviet Union archives, Steil paints a vivid picture, though his account does not greatly alter the popular assessment of Wallace as a progressive firebrand. Still, this is a rewarding dive into the inner workings of mid-century American government. (Jan.)