Lessons Learned: A Better World

James Holland examines the vision that President Roosevelt—and his successor, Harry S. Truman—had for securing long-term peace and prosperity after 1945.  Beginning with Roosevelt’s Good Neighbour Policy in the 1930s, through the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter of 1941, Holland will trace not only how America rearmed but how it began planning for the postwar world. These efforts resulted in the famous Bretton Woods conference that saw the birth of the IMF and World Bank, and, under Truman, led to the Marshall Plan – the first time ever the victors economically bailed out the vanquished.  As Holland will argue, these policies led to eighty years of peace in the West.