In the era of the appeasement of the dictators, Samuel Untermyer stands out as a champion of the human rights of not just German Jewry, but of other persecuted communities in Germany such as trade unionists, Roman Catholics and Freemasons. This is the first full biography of Untermyer, a prominent Wall Street lawyer who founded the principles on which Jewish democratic politics still stands today. The first to oppose Hitler, he organised the anti-Nazi league in the early 1930s, and proposed a unique global socialist/capitalist worldview which still informs American politics today.

Richard A. Hawkins is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of History, Politics and War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. He is author of A Pacific Industry: The History of Pineapple Canning in Hawaii (2011).