One of today's premier biographers has written a modern,
comprehensive, indeed ultimate book on the epic life of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt. In this superlative volume, Jean Edward Smith
combines contemporary scholarship and a broad range of primary
source material to provide an engrossing narrative of one of
America's greatest presidents.
This is a portrait painted in broad strokes and fine details. We
see how Roosevelt's restless energy, fierce intellect, personal
magnetism, and ability to project effortless grace permitted him to
master countless challenges throughout his life. Smith recounts
FDR's battles with polio and physical disability, and how these
experiences helped forge the resolve that FDR used to surmount the
economic turmoil of the Great Depression and the wartime threat of
totalitarianism. Here also is FDR's private life depicted with
unprecedented candor and nuance, with close attention paid to the
four women who molded his personality and helped to inform his
worldview: His mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, formidable yet ever
supportive and tender; his wife, Eleanor, whose counsel and
affection were instrumental to FDR's public and individual
achievements; Lucy Mercer, the great romantic love of FDR's life;
and Missy LeHand, FDR's longtime secretary, companion, and
confidante, whose adoration of her boss was practically limitless.
Smith also tackles head-on and in-depth the numerous failures and
miscues of Roosevelt's public career, including his disastrous
attempt to reconstruct the Judiciary; the shameful internment of
Japanese-Americans; and Roosevelt's occasionally self-defeating
Executive overreach. Additionally, Smith offers a sensitive and
balanced assessment of Roosevelt's response to the Holocaust,
noting its breakthroughs and shortcomings.
Summing up Roosevelt's legacy, Jean Smith declares that FDR, more
than any other individual, changed the relationship between the
American people and their government. It was Roosevelt who
revolutionized the art of campaigning and used the burgeoning mass
media to garner public support and allay fears. But more important,
Smith gives us the clearest picture yet of how this quintessential
Knickerbocker aristocrat, a man who never had to depend on a
paycheck, became the common man's president. The result is a
powerful account that adds fresh perspectives and draws profound
conclusions about a man whose story is widely known but far less
well understood. Written for the general reader and scholars alike,
"FDR" is a stunning biography in every way worthy of its subject.
"From the Hardcover edition."
General
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