Book contents
- The Greatest of All Time
- The Greatest of All Time
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Economics of American Greatness
- 2 The Problem of the Great All-Knowing Answer Man
- 3 The Rise and Fall of the Great Changemakers
- 4 How the Babe Became the Greatest (and the Roosevelts, Too)
- 5 The Great Counterculture Conundrum
- Conclusion
- Index
4 - How the Babe Became the Greatest (and the Roosevelts, Too)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2025
Book contents
- The Greatest of All Time
- The Greatest of All Time
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Economics of American Greatness
- 2 The Problem of the Great All-Knowing Answer Man
- 3 The Rise and Fall of the Great Changemakers
- 4 How the Babe Became the Greatest (and the Roosevelts, Too)
- 5 The Great Counterculture Conundrum
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
This chapter uses the histories of baseball (Ty Cobb vs. Babe Ruth) and presidential power rankings, and the reception history of Eleanor Roosevelt to unearth a sea change in greatness conversations. During the 1950s, America swapped Ty Cobb for Babe Ruth and Washington for FDR to signal a change in the value of greatness. Whereas Americans had valued greatness as a shorthand for changemaking, the postwar period witnessed a search for nostalgic heroes meant to confirm already-established ideals of this generation, later to be designated the “Greatest Generation.”
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- Information
- The Greatest of All TimeA History of an American Obsession, pp. 122 - 159Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025