Kurt Abbott BestulLast tended 2026-02-12
Vaulting forward: how New Deal thinking launched the future
A KABGemini project podcast
From a collaboration with Google Gemini 3 Flash/Free-Tier (February 15, 2026)
Kurt to Gemini:
I want to begin a new discussion on the following:
as it became clear to Franklin Delano Roosevelt that U.S. entry into WWII was inevitable, at the core of his response was to use his key new-deal compatriots and new-deal lessons-learned for a massive mobilization and convergence of U.S. science expertise, industrial expertise, logistics expertise, and natural resources capacity. Though he confided his vision to few, it seems clear he sensed the U.S.'s path to victory would come from vaulting the US into the future. Is it possible FDR comprehended how his plan would benefit from a nascent "geography of success" in the sense recently clarified by Peter Zeihan? What follows is a list of books I've read that I feel touch in one way or another on this thesis. Please opine on 1) the thesis I've laid out, 2) if the books relate as I've suggested, 3) if you know of other sources that substantiate and enlighten the thesis, and 4) if any correction or modification is warranted for the thesis.
We developed the podcast script via an extended dialog based on that seed.
68 minutes
The books foundation of this collaboration#
| OCLC | Author | Title | Copyright |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1365385238 | Nelson, Craig | V Is for Victory : Franklin Roosevelt’s American Revolution and the Triumph of World War II | 2023 |
| 1036104286 | Immerwahr, Daniel | How to Hide an Empire : A History of the Greater United States | 2019 |
| 733230713 | Gertner, Jon | The Idea Factory : Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation | 2012 |
| 1267751028 | Simms, Brendan, and Steve McGregor | The Silver Waterfall : How America Won the War in the Pacific at Midway | 2022 |
| 1263339816 | Hornfischer, James D. | Who Can Hold the Sea : The U.S. Navy in the Cold War, 1945-1960 | 2022 |
| 891618851 | Kunetka, James W. | The General and the Genius : Groves and Oppenheimer : The Unlikely Partnership That Built the Atom Bomb | 2015 |
| 1194869497 | Whyte, Kenneth | The Sack of Detroit : General Motors and the End of American Enterprise | 2021 |
| 1304833686 | Zeihan, Peter | The End of the World Is Just the Beginning : Mapping the Collapse of Globalization | 2022 |
| 756377562 | Herman, Arthur | Freedom’s Forge : How American Business Produced Victory in World War II | 2012 |
| 1000054332 | Gordon, Robert J | The Rise and Fall of American Growth : The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War | 2017 |
| 31738572 | White, Richard | The Organic Machine | 1995 |
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