BRATTLEBORO — University of Vermont History Professor Emeritus Mark A. Stoler, Ph.D., will consider the legacy of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Depression-era New Deal policies in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on Oct. 4 at 7 p.m.
His talk, “Nothing to Fear, But Fear Itself: FDR and the New Deal,” is the opening talk of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series for the 2017-2018 season, and it is free and open to the public.
From 1929 to 1939, the U.S. experienced the longest and worst economic depression in its history and the first in which the federal government acted decisively to reverse it. Professor Stoler will discuss how Roosevelt's New Deal changed the government's role in the economy and affected the lives of Americans in ways that are still with us.
Stoler is professor emeritus at the University of Vermont and co-editor of The Marshall Papers. He is also a distinguished military and diplomatic historian and author of numerous books, including the acclaimed biography of Marshall, George C. Marshall: Soldier-Statesman of the American Century.
Stoler's scholarship earned him the University Scholar Award at UVM (1993) and the Distinguished Book Award of the Society for Military History (2002); his equally distinguished teaching earned him the Dean's Lecture Award (1992), the George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award (1984), and the Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award (2006).
In addition to teaching at UVM, Stoler has served as a visiting professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval War College, the University of Haifa in Israel, the U.S. Military History Institute, Williams College, and Washington & Lee University. He is former president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and a former trustee of the Society for Military History.
The Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays series is held on the first Wednesday of every month from October through May in nine communities statewide, featuring speakers of national and regional renown. Talks in Brattleboro are held at Brooks Memorial Library unless otherwise noted. The program is free, accessible to people with disabilities, and open to the public.