In his Hillman Prize-winning book, Fear Itself, Ira Katznelson argues that the New Deal was a deal with various devils. In order to save America’s foundering democracy–and usher in the progressive reforms of the New Deal–Franklin Roosevelt had to ally himself with various anti-democratic factions including the racists of the Jim Crow South.

The South was adamant that the New Deal could not threaten segregation, and Roosevelt played along, allowing the South to effectively shut its black citizens out of the benefits of the New Deal. Fear Itself forces us to confront the hidden history of racism at the heart of one of the most beloved progressive initiatives in U.S. history. 

Writing in the New York Times, Kevin Boyle praised the book’s thesis as a “powerful argument, swept along by Katznelson’s robust prose and the imposing scholarship that lies behind it.”

Katznelson is Columbia University’s Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History and the author of When Affirmative Action Was White. 

We are very proud to honor Katznelson with this year’s Hillman Prize for Book Journalism.