Arsenal of Democracy (Baime)

The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War
A.J. Baime, 2014
Houghton Mifflin
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547719283


Summary
A dramatic, intimate narrative of how Ford Motor Company went from making automobiles to producing the airplanes that would mean the difference between winning and losing World War II.
 
In 1941, as Hitler’s threat loomed ever larger, President Roosevelt realized he needed weaponry to fight the Nazis—most important, airplanes—and he needed them fast. So he turned to Detroit and the auto industry for help.

The Arsenal of Democracy tells the incredible story of how Detroit answered the call, centering on Henry Ford and his tortured son Edsel, who, when asked if they could deliver 50,000 airplanes, made an outrageous claim: Ford Motor Company would erect a plant that could yield a "bomber an hour." Critics scoffed: Ford didn’t make planes; they made simple, affordable cars.

But bucking his father’s resistance, Edsel charged ahead. Ford would apply assembly-line production to the American military’s largest, fastest, most destructive bomber; they would build a plant vast in size and ambition on a plot of farmland and call it Willow Run; they would bring in tens of thousands of workers from across the country, transforming Detroit, almost overnight, from Motor City to the "great arsenal of democracy." And eventually they would help the Allies win the war.

Drawing on exhaustive research from the Ford Archives, the National Archives, and the FDR Library, A. J. Baime has crafted an enthralling, character-driven narrative of American innovation that has never been fully told, leaving readers with a vivid new portrait of America—and Detroit—during the war. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Raised—Caldwell, New Jersey
• Education—University of New Hampshire; M.A., New York University
• Currently—Chicago, Illinois


A.J. Baime is the author of Big Shots: The Men Behind the Booze (2003); Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans (2010) and The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War (2014). A magazine editor, Baime has written for numerous publications, including New York Times Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Popular Science, and Maxim. (Adapated from the publisher.)

Book Reviews
In A. J. Baime’s fast-paced book, The Arsenal of Democracy, the Ford Motor Company and its production of the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber take center stage. To be sure, this was one of many planes produced for the war, and Ford was neither the only car company to manufacture planes nor the largest military contractor. But as Baime points out, “Americans believed that no single Detroit industrialist was contributing more to the war effort than Henry Ford.... The book’s intent is not to be useful to contemporary policy debates but to tell a good story. However, ignoring some of the more challenging complexities of its subject makes The Arsenal of Democracy less rewarding than it might have been.
Charles N. Edel = New York Times Book Review


If anyone remembers Edsel Ford today, it is because of the Ford Edsel, the car created in 1957, 14 years after its namesake's death. It was one of the biggest flops in car-industry history. The only son of automotive wizard Henry Ford has deserved a better legacy, and A.J. Baime has given it to him. Although billed as a history of how the Detroit auto industry geared up to arm the United States, The Arsenal of Democracy is a touching and absorbing portrait of one the forgotten heroes of World War II.
Arthur Herman - Wall Street Journal


This accessible, surprising history is a welcome addition to the inexhaustible list of WWII studies, as Baime (Go Like Hell) claims that perhaps the most important battle was fought far from the battlefield—in the monolithic warehouses of Ford Motor Company in Detroit.... [A] forthright and absorbing look at "the biggest job in all history."
Publishers Weekly


At the core [is] an epic battle between father and son, the cantankerous industrialist Henry Ford, who despised war, and his sensitive son, Edsel, who could never emerge from his father’s shadow.... Baime details [the massive war effort] with great care and empathy for his principal subjects. —David Siegfried
Booklist


The Ford Motor Company goes to war...[is the] latest examination of the transition of American industry to wartime production.... Written in a hyperbolic tabloid style...the book falls well short of the standards set by similar recent works. See Arthur Herman's Freedom's Forge instead. A complex and worthy story reduced to a beach read.
Kirkus Reviews

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