High Tension: FDR's Battle to Power America

· Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by David Stifel
Audiobook
10 hr 11 min
Unabridged
Eligible
Want a free 1 hr 5 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline. 
Add

About this audiobook

High Tension is the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's battle against the "Power Trust," an elaborate Wall Street-controlled web of holding companies, to electrify all of America—even when the corrupt captains of the industry and their cronies (led by a formidable and honest champion, Wendell Willkie, whose role in the battle propelled him to a presidential bid to unseat Roosevelt in 1940) cried that running lines to rural areas would not be profitable and that in a free market there would simply have to be a divide between the electricity haves and have-nots.



FDR knew better. And in this story of shrewd political maneuvering, controversial legislation, New Deal government organizations like the Tennessee Valley Authority, the packing of Federal courts, towering business figures, greedy villains, and the crying needs of farmers and other rural citizens desperate for services critical to their daily lives John A. Riggs has chronicled democracy's greatest balancing act of government intervention with private market forces. Here is the tale of how FDR's efforts brought affordable electricity to all Americans, powered the industrial might that won World War II, and established a model for public-private solutions today in areas such as transportation infrastructure, broadband, and health care.
High Tension is the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's battle against the "Power Trust," an elaborate Wall Street-controlled web of holding companies, to electrify all of America—even when the corrupt captains of the industry and their cronies (led by a formidable and honest champion, Wendell W...

Discover more

Rate this audiobook

Tell us what you think.

Listening information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.