Mason B. Williams’s first book, City of Ambition: FDR, La Guardia, and the Making of Modern New York, was just published by W. W. Norton.  He holds a doctorate in history from Columbia University and will begin teaching at The New School this fall.

At the time FDR’s New Deal saved America, people came to believe in the power and benefit of the government. But what happened to that belief? Historian Mason B. Williams on recapturing the spirit of those days.