Nicholas Roosevelt and American Domestic and Foreign Policy in the First Half of the 20th Century
author: Zoltán Petercz PhD
Abstract:
Nicholas Roosevelt is not as well known a historical figure as his famous presidential relatives: Theodore and Franklin. However, his career makes the perfect bridge between those giants of American history. Through his upbringing and connections, he received a taste of domestic policy in the fateful US presidential campaign of 1912 and diplomacy during World War I, which was followed by many years of journalism for such prominent dailies as the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. Under Herbert Hoover’s presidency, he reached the pinnacle of his carrier, when the president appointed him the Minister to Hungary (1930–33), a nation that was wallowing in the throes of economic and financial depression. Roosevelt later returned to private life and journalism, but during World War II he joined the government as a member of the Office of War Information. Although his health forced him into early retirement, Roosevelt remained a prolific writer and produced many books throughout his life that reflect the American domestic and foreign policy questions in the first half of the 20th century and the early Cold War.
About the author:
Zoltán Peterecz earned his Ph.D. degree at Eötvös Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary, in 2010. His PhD dissertation concentrated on the financial reconstruction of Hungary in the 1920s orchestrated by the League of Nations, an under-researched period and topic both in Hungarian and international historiography. Later, the dissertation was published as a monograph (Jeremiah Smith, Jr. and Hungary, 1924–1926: the United States, the League of Nations, and the Financial Reconstruction of Hungary (London: Versita, 2013). The Hungarian edition of the book appeared in 2018 as a publication of Debrecen University Press.
Peterecz started teaching at Eszterházy Károly College, Eger, Hungary in 2009 and presently is an associate professor in the Institute of English and American Studies at the college renamed Eszterházy Károly University. In 2015, after he received a Fulbright Scholarship as a researcher, he spent five months at Yale University.
His main field of research is American history, American culture, American foreign affairs, and American-Hungarian relations in the first half of the twentieth century, on which he regularly publishes articles. His book that introduced the history of American exceptionalism to Hungarian readers (A kivételes Amerika [The Exceptional America] Budapest: Gondolat Kiadó, 2016) was well received. His latest book dealt with the life and career of Royall Tyler, an American involved in the financial and diplomatic questions of Europe between 1918 and 1953 (Royall Tyler and Hungary: An American in Europe and Crisis Years, 1918–1953, Reno, Nevada: Helena History Press, 2021).