Domestic-bonds

During World War II, the U.S. Treasury Department mounted seven campaigns to sell bonds that helped fund the war effort. These campaigns, writes Lawrence R. Samuel in this illuminating work of social history, turned on a conception of Americans as a people united against Fascism, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or class. The pitch worked extremely well, raising more than $150 billion. It also raised expectations, especially among African Americans, that the pledge to fight racist policies abroad would apply to the home front as well. The 1942 Double-V campaign, in fact, included a slogan promising a commitment to fight democracy's enemies at home and abroad--a slogan that was dropped after certain politicians complained that it was subversive. Samuel makes tentative links between such progressive ideas and the birth of the civil rights movement, which adds to an already fascinating study.