Johnathan Alter – author of The Defining Moment – FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1932 the United States was entering a dark night of economic depression and growing world tensions. Within days Roosevelt embarked on a legislative whirlwind that history has enshrined as "the first Hundred days" What is remarkable about that period is the experimental energy F.D.R.'s administration displayed. That energy combined with Roosevelt's reassuring charisma calmed a nation that was badly shaken and fearful of the future. Journalist Johnathan Alter explains how he did it.