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William E. Leuchtenburg

William E. Leuchtenburg, a prominent 20th century historian, is the William Rand Kenan, Jr. professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He has won the Bancroft and Parkman prizes, and has written numerous books on Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, and the New Deal. He won the 2007 North Carolina Award for Literature.

Articles by this Author

For all his previous successes, President Herbert Hoover proved incapable of arresting the economic free fall of the Depression— or soothing the fears of a distressed nation
Governor Mario Cuomo of New York has used history as a guide — and a solace — for a good part of his life
An hour and a half of growing astonishment in the presence of the President of the United States, as recorded by a witness who now publishes a record of it for the first time
It’s not surprising that Democrats seek to wrap themselves in the Roosevelt cloak; what’s harder to understand is why so many Republicans do too. A distinguished historian explains.
When Elsie Parrish was fired, her fight for justice led to dramatic changes in the nation’s highest court.
A brilliant demagogue named Huey Long was scrambling for the Presidency when an assassin’s bullets cut him down just fifty years ago
Was the murdered President one of our best, a man of “vigor, rationality, and noble vision” or was he “an optical illusion,” “an expensively programmed waxwork”? A noted historian examines the mottled evolution of his reputation.
"The current was too strong, the demagogues too numerous, the fall elections too near"