The World That Wasn't

Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century

By: Benn Steil

Narrated by: Stephen Graybill

Length: 23 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

From the acclaimed economist-historian and author of The Marshall Plan comes a dramatic and powerful new perspective on the political career of Henry Wallace—a perspective that will forever change how we view the making of US and Soviet foreign policy at the dawn of the Cold War.

Henry Wallace is the most important, and certainly the most fascinating, almost-president in American history. As FDR’s third-term vice president, and a hero to many progressives, he lost his place on the 1944 Democratic ticket in a wild open convention, as a result of which Harry Truman became president on FDR’s death. Books, films, and even plays have since portrayed the circumstances surrounding Wallace’s defeat as corrupt, and the results catastrophic. Filmmaker Oliver Stone, among others, has claimed that Wallace’s loss ushered in four decades of devastating and unnecessary Cold War.

Now, based on striking new finds from Russian, FBI, and other archives, Benn Steil’s The World That Wasn’t paints a decidedly less heroic portrait of the man, of the events surrounding his fall, and of the world that might have been under his presidency. Though a brilliant geneticist, Henry Wallace was a self-obsessed political figure, blind to the manipulations of aides—many of whom were Soviet agents and assets.

From 1933 to 1949, Wallace undertook a series of remarkable interventions abroad, each aimed at remaking the world order according to his evolving spiritual blueprint. As agriculture secretary, he fell under the spell of Russian mystics, and used the cover of a plant-gathering mission to aid their doomed effort to forge a new theocratic state in Central Asia. As vice president, he toured a Potemkin Siberian continent, guided by undercover Soviet security and intelligence officials who hid labor camps and concealed prisoners. He then wrote a book, together with an American NKGB journalist source, hailing the region’s renaissance under Bolshevik leadership. In China, the Soviets uncovered his private efforts to coax concessions to Moscow from Chiang Kai-shek, fueling their ambitions to dominate Manchuria. Running for president in 1948, he colluded with Stalin to undermine his government’s foreign policy, allowing the dictator to edit his most important election speech. It was not until 1950 that he began to acknowledge his misapprehensions regarding the Kremlin’s aims and conduct.

Meticulously researched and deftly written, The World That Wasn’t is a spellbinding work of political biography and narrative history that will upend how we see the making of the early Cold War.

©2024 Benn Steil (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Should be required reading for all voters

I put off listening due to length and unfamiliarity of Wallace (which is why I bought it). It reveals history prior to my time. I wish I could ask my parents what they thought about these elections. Noble intentions can be used by devious. I will think about Wallace when I eat chicken or corn-his area of expertise in which he excelled.

American Dreamer

2000’s “American Dreamer: Life of Henry A Wallace” was better. It was more engaging as just a read while also being more fair because the authors are actually from Iowa and one of them was a Senator. Make that one an Audible option

completely biased completely partisan.

I never read such a pathetic history in my life...a weak minded partisan drivel piece. this is what Donny Trump would write if he could write ...