"There is a tendency to give FDR much of the credit for easing U.S. public opinion toward war. In this first-rate book, Andrew Johnstone complicates that view, injecting new perspectives and actors into a well-known story. The author reveals how the long, difficult, and passionate debate over intervention in World War II was shaped by a selection of activists. At crucial points, it was not the president but these influential figures and their organizations that had decisive impact on which direction the government and the country moved."
"Against Immediate Evilis an important contribution to the historiography of the formation of the foundations of American foreign policy as the United States asserted its role in the mid-twentieth century as not just a great power, but as an emerging global superpower. . . . Andrew Johnstone's book is a concise and readable chronological narrative of the development of the American internationalist before the entrance of the United States in the Second World War."—Grant Harward,H-War(February 2015)
"Against Immediate Evil is the authoritative account ofthe pre–World War II internationalists'organizations,and a significant contribution to our understanding ofthe great debate before World War II and the key components of American internationalism that continued toshape the thinking about American policy at the end ofthe war."—David F. Schmitz, American Historical Review (February 2016)
"Against Immediate Evil is an excellent book. It brings together all the strands of pre–Pearl Harbor internationalism, and looks at the areas of conflict and cooperation between them. Throughout, Andrew Johnstone's argument is clear and cogent; it is based on an impressive body of primary research."—Steven Casey, London School of Economics and Political Science, author of When Soldiers Fall: How Americans have Confronted Combat Casualties from World War I to Afghanistan
"There is a tendency to give FDR much of the credit for easing U.S. public opinion toward war. In this first-rate book, Andrew Johnstone complicates that view, injecting new perspectives and actors into a well-known story. The author reveals how the long, difficult, and passionate debate over intervention in World War II was shaped by a selection of activists. At crucial points, it was not the president but these influential figures and their organizations that had decisive impact on which direction the government and the country moved."—David Ekbladh, Tufts University, author of The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order
