"Benn Steil is senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War, winner of the New York Historical Society's Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History and the American Academy of Diplomacy's Douglas Dillon Award. His previous book, the prizewinning Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order, was called ""a triumph of economic and diplomatic history"" by the Financial Times, ""a superb history"" by The Wall Street Journal, and ""the gold standard on its subject"" by The New York Times. He lives in New York with his two boys."
"""A brilliant and fascinating story of a charismatic and well-meaning leader undone by Soviet propaganda. The nation was lucky to have Harry Truman in position as VP when FDR died--but it was a near run thing. Exceptional history, engrossing story telling."" --Admiral James Stavridis ""This book is BEYOND BELIEF. Highly recommended 10/10."" --Marc Andreessen ""Benn Steil's new book, The World That Wasn't, demonstrates that Wallace would not have saved the United States from a rivalry with the Soviet Union. . . . But Steil highlights a larger lesson: It takes two to make peace. Through diplomacy, states can resolve conflicts, but if one actor will not relent, the options are appeasement or confrontation, not real peace."" --Washington Examiner ""Timely, riveting . . . Historian Benn Steil's new biography should be read right now."" --George F. Will, The Washington Post ""A groundbreaking biography . . . Benn Steil comes closer than anyone before him to unraveling the enigma of this visionary hybrid of feeling and fact."" --Richard Norton Smith, Washington Free Beacon ""A rigorously researched and revelatory new Wallace biography."" --New York Journal of Books ""American history--and world history--could have turned out very differently if just a few things had gone the other way. Most notably, the U.S. after World War II might have pursued a pro-Soviet foreign policy, consigning Europe to Communist control, if President Franklin Roosevelt had died in the middle of his third term or if the 1944 Democratic National Convention had not dumped Vice President Henry Wallace for Harry Truman. How this counterfactual history came close to happening, and how it was prevented, is the subject of Benn Steil's definitive account, The World That Wasn't."" --Wall Street Journal ""Steil deftly sorts through [the layers of legend] to distinguish truth from fiction. . . . A welcome reconsideration of a much-misunderstood but important figure in American politics."" --Kirkus Reviews ""A meticulous biography of Henry Wallace . . . Drawing on new materials from FBI and Soviet Union archives, Steil paints a vivid picture. . . . This is a rewarding dive into the inner workings of mid-century American government."" --Publishers Weekly ""One of the strangest characteristics of Cold War historiography is the frequency with which Henry Wallace and hagiography have accompanied one another. 'If only Wallace, and not Truman, had succeeded FDR, ' the argument runs, 'the Cold War would never have happened.' No Wallace biographer, until now, has made a serious effort to assess that claim, not only on the basis of the Wallace papers but also documents from 'the other side' that the end of the Cold War made available. With The World That Wasn't, Benn Steil has risen triumphantly to that challenge: his book is equally important for what it tells us about our past, and for what it may imply about our future."" --John Lewis Gaddis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of George F. Kennan: An American Life"