George H. Nash

First published in 1976, and revised in 1996, George H. Nash's celebrated history of the postwar conservative intellectual movement has become the unquestioned standard in the field.

The entry of the United States into the First World War in late 1911 found Herbert Hoover at a crossroads. Three years earlier, he had been a successful mining engineer in London. Then, as the war intensified in Europe, Hoover founded and led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which provided desperately needed fuel to more than nine million Belgian and French citizens trapped between the German army of occupation and the British naval blockade. That emergency undertaking eventually evolved into one of the greatest humanitarian enterprises in history. It also brought Hoover into international prominence. Here Herbert Hoover moves toward Washington and center stage in his own country. Shortly after the United States's declaration of war, he entered into able service under Woodrow Wilson as a member of the President's War Cabinet and U. S. Food Administration. His goal was to standardize food production to control surging food prices, and to create surpluses of exportable foodstuffs for America's allies. "Food will win the war" became Hoover's slogan.

At the outbreak of World War I, Hoover was a wealthy mining engineer and businessman living in London. In a short time, he became the founder and brilliant director of an unprecedented international relief organization, which provided desperately needed food to more than 9,000,000 Belgian and French citizens trapped between the German army of occupation and the British naval blockade. By 1919, when his Commission for Relief in Belgium closed its operations, it had expended nearly $1 billion--and had created a twentieth-century hero. By then, Hoover had irrevocably embarked on "the slippery road of public life," which eventually led him to the White House door. This book--based on research conducted on three continents--is the second volume in Dr. Nash's definitive account of Hoover's life.

George Nash's research reveals the enduring ties that bound Hoover to Stanford University.