Book Review: ‘America First’ is a resonant history of FDR’s fight against isolationist movement

Historian H.W. Brands’ “America First: Roosevelt vs Lindbergh in the Shadow of War” barely mentions former President Donald Trump or the 2024 election. But it could be one of the most relevant books to read for this year’s presidential campaign.

Brands has written a resonant history of how Roosevelt fought behind the scenes — and eventually publicly — against the “America First” movement whose name was later appropriated by Trump, who is seeking a return to the White House in this year’s election.

The book chronicles how aviator Charles Lindbergh became the charismatic face of the “America First” movement that arose in the wake of the WWI and urged against the United States’ intervening overseas as Adolf Hitler rose to power.

Brands expertly displays the control President Franklin Delano Roosevelt displayed in approaching the movement during his early years in office, despite seeing the threat it could pose to foreign policy in the long term.

“Their policy was really ‘America alone,’ at a time when the United States needed all the help it could get in dealing with the existential challenge of militant fascism,” Brands writes.

The book also displays how Roosevelt maneuvered around Lindbergh during his rise, trying to avoid aggravating the aviator’s followers as the U.S. inched closer toward involvement in Europe. Brands tells how Lindbergh’s rhetoric fueled his rise as “America First” spokesman but also led to his downfall, culminating in a 1941 speech widely condemned for its antisemitism.

Brands shows great restraint in avoiding for most of the book in drawing parallels between Roosevelt’s fight with isolationists to today’s politics, and some conservatives’ opposition to spending more on overseas wars. But his straightforward history is an important guide for understanding the legacy of the movement that Lindbergh led.

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