It is a tremendous effort well done and lends insight to the times, the participants and the war. H. W. Brands is no Ron Chernow but nevertheless a fine writer.
The price was high and we all as Americans paid it in lives and cash but in the end it was worth it. First off, despite reading extensively about FDR in the context of World War II, I’ve never tackled a full-scale, birth-to-death biography. Did you know one of the reasons he headed the na I picked this up because I wanted to live, for a time, in a fantasy world where a progressive President was in the White House and the American military had moral authority. I wanted a biography that paid its due to an inarguably great president while also critiquing his many failings, shortcomings, and mistakes.
I had just finished reading a book of letters from The Great Depression and was fascinated about class in America in that era and the double-edge sword of pride which kept people from seeking the help they needed until it was too late. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.Among these are:The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;The right of every family to a decent home;The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;The right to a good education."
Very readable discussion of a pretty amazing figure at the center of an amazing stretch of US history. Many of them would not have made it without a little boost from such programs as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration. Brand's approach is to focus on FDR himself, his approach and decisions, and then to provide some context for those decisions...whether they apply to the Great Depression or World War II. The Atlantic Charter was an important document supporting self-rule among the colonies. Despite the people who think theirs was a marriage of convenience for political reasons it was not. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. Because of this, I respect his judgments as derived from the evidence, rather than shaping the evidence to fit his judgments. The book provides wonderful details of the last great American president (except for Truman). The chief burden of the book is to explain how a man of Roosevelt's class and privilege could have become so firm a supporter of ordinary men and women, and so visionary an architect of American internationalism.
She summed her thoughts by writing what might be Franklin Roosevelt's most fitting epitaph:"If at the end one can say: ‘This man used to the limit the powers that God granted him; he was worthy of love and respect and of the sacrifices of many people, made in order that he might achieve what he deemed to be his task,’ then that life has been lived well and there are no regrets.” Narrative biography of FDR. I came away from it without a sense that I know FDR significantly better than I already did. Still, I think Brands does a really good job of at least touching on all the high points.
He also hones in on certain important relationships, especially his strange, estranged, and captivating relationship with Eleanor.
All human beings have failings; all human beings have temptations and stresses."
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