Jonathan Alter and Alan Brinkley: The Defining Moment: FDR’s First Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter and Columbia University Provost Alan Brinkley discuss the first 100 days of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, the subject of Alter’s recent book, The Defining Moment: FDR’s First Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. The book contends that the first hundred days were not only the beginning of the New Deal, but also “the climax to a piece of political theater,” which had begun years earlier when Roosevelt overcame polio and public perceptions of him as an elitist lightweight.