Before being appointed secretary of state by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, Cordell Hull had already been a state legislator, circuit court judge, congressman, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and US senator. By the end of his term, he would be the longest-serving secretary of state in US history. But as historian Ray Hill argues in this new biography, Hull was firstly a proud Tennessean.
In Cordell Hull: Tennessee's Nobel Prize-Winning Statesman, author Ray Hill traces Hull's early career from his years as a law student and burgeoning politician to the challenges and successes of his later political service. The book follows Hull through the Great Depression, World War II, and Roosevelt's death. It also examines his role in the influential Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act as secretary of state, which helped lay the foundation for modern global trade. In 1945, Hull was instrumental in the creation of the United Nations, winning the Nobel Peace Prize for this work.
While widely admired and beloved throughout the United States-frequently polling more favorably than the presidents he served-Hull was unanimously revered in the Volunteer State. No previous volume, including Hull's own lengthy memoirs, gives as much space to his Tennessee political roots as this revelatory new biography.
