Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.917092
EAN num: 9781400061211
ISBN number: 1400061210
Label: Random House
Manufacturer: Random House
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 880
Printing Date: May 15, 2007
Publishing house: Random House
Release Date: May 15, 2007
Sale Popularity Level: 230799
Studio: Random House
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Product Description:
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 endeavor 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.
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Rated by buyers 
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This book was a good general history of FDR. It discusses his life, how he balanced his personal life with professional. It also shows the resiliency that FDR showed in overcoming polio and fighting through the Depression and the onset of World War II.
FDR is shown as a man who never outpaced public opinion in the choices he made, but rather pushed or waited until public opinion was with him (except in a few cases, such as his endeavor at packing the Court).
Smith showed his hands off approach to World War II, in part by giving seemingly not enough attention to the subject. One minute, FDR is discussing the second front with Churchill and Stalin in Tehran in 1943, and the subsequent he's running for President in 1944. I would've liked to see more of how FDR dealt with public opinion and inspired the American people in WWII.
All that said, the main shortcomings appear to be not enough depth in individual cases that FDR dealt with as President that have probably been more than adequately covered in more specific histories of the time and FDR's presidency.
I would recommend this book for anybody interested in getting a good foundational understanding of FDR in an easy-to-read one volume history. It's a good starting point, and the book may inspire you to look for more in-depth books about specific actions he undertook as President, such as Japanese internment, the New Deal, Roosevelt with Churchill and Stalin, or the run-up to World War II.
Rated by buyers -
Franklin D. Roosevelt was unquestionably one of the great American presidents. In a time when America is again suffering bank failures and other economic problems it is useful to read a good analysis of FDR, and how he dealt with the problems of the Great Depression. Here, the author provides a succinct and valuable look at the New Deal. This constitutes the main contribution of this piece.
The author concludes that FDR was not a deep thinker, but he was a man of action who learned how to operate the levers of government and achieve most of the goals that he wanted to. Regardless of one's opinion of the actual programs comprising "The Hundred Days" legislation at the beginning of Roosevelt's very first term, it was a masterpiece of political maneuvering and most of it was managed directly by Roosevelt himself, showcasing his formidable political skills. The author (as do most historians) concludes that most of the "New Deal" legislation was experimental--FDR tried one solution, then another, to combat the Depression. To this day historians and economists differ as to their evaluation of it. Here, I thought that the author was pretty evenhanded, as he concludes that some of the New Deal actions were essential (unemployment insurance, various work relief programs such as the CCC, electrification of America's rural areas) while others were frank failures (NIRA, some of FDR's agricultural programs). The reader can develop his or her own opinions on this. One thing that does come out of this work that I had not realized until the author pointed it out, is that the "New Deal" had pretty much run its course by the end of Roosevelt's second term, and most of Roosevelt's advisers as well as the President himself believed that it was mostly time for the US economy to make it without large government programs such as NIRA propping it up. Of course, the Second World War intervened before this argument was ever fully decided.
The author makes a persuasive case that Roosevelt's enormous re-election landslide caused him to overreach, and overestimate executive power. The "court packing" plan was very unpopular, and this legislation was defeated. But even here, Roosevelt came out a winner, as the Supreme Court, clearly reacting to the threat to its own power, reversed decades of precedent and allowed the Federal Government, through New Deal programs, to regulate parts of the US economy the regulation of which prior to these Court reversals the Court had held to be unconstitutional. The impact of this persists to the present day, with the Federal Government regulating all aspects of interstate commerce up to and including what kind of toilets Americans are allowed to buy or use.
One of the things that this piece really reveals to the reader is the extent to which the American upper class dominated presidential politics during the early 20th Century. I had not realized how much Theodore Roosevelt had conferred political legitimacy upon FDR. The prestige of the Roosevelt name, combined with FDR's social connections and family wealth, caused him to understand from an early age that high political office was within his grasp. FDR was a member of this "club" and was sought after as a candidate for numerous offices. A small circle of upper-class Eastern patricians dominated many aspects of American politics then to an extent even greater than today. The book does an outstanding job of illustrating and explaining this.
Overall, although this book is not a short read, it is an engaging and insightful one. The events of the present (December 2008) make it particularly relevant at this time. Highly recommended.
Rated by buyers -
This book fails to include running page references in the section of footnotes, making it awkward and annoying to jump to the note you want to look up.
I don't understand why experienced publishers are still failing to do that, particularly in books like "FDR" where the notes are extensive. And I don't know if the author is clueless about this as well, or whether he signs a contract that prevents any influence on the book design.
Rated by buyers 
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Well written bio of a man who was both understood and misunderstood throughout his presidency. Lots of fascinating details.
Rated by buyers -
The book "FDR" by Jean Edward Smith was an excellent biography. At very first glance, the book looks intimidating. However, once the reader dives in, it is an excellent read. Mr. Smith's detail to FDR's early and mid life was exceptional. The nature and extent of his relationships to his family and friends provided a roadmap as to his leadership skills and abilities. This explained his presidency to a great extent. The author provides enough details to cover the terms of FDR and the WWII. The only thing that precluded this reviewer from giving this book the fifth star was the lack of depth towards the end of his life. For instance, the story was told through Pearl Harbor to D-Day and Yalta without any coverage between his last inaugural address and his death. Perhaps I expected more than what is available in terms of facts. In sum, FDR by Jean Edward Smith is an excellent read even to the non-historian.
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