I’ll get this out of the way at the outset: I didn’t like this book.
Why give it four stars, then, you ask? Well, it’s not a bad book. There’s nothing wrong with it, per say. I just didn’t like it. It took me eight months to read it. I’d like to blame it on the fact that my family increased by one 7 pound boy during that time, but there’s no getting around the fact that I simply struggled to get through this. I started reading this after I finished Team of Rivals back in January, and I’ve read 15 books since then. So I can’t really say the kid took all my time from me.
And I can’t really pinpoint what it is about this book that kept losing me. Brands is a good writer, and his biography of Reagan (my previous review) was very enjoyable. I felt a detachment here, however, that wasn’t present in Reagan: The Life. He’s great at contextualizing the subject, and explaining the intricacies of policy. I think I came away from this book with a keen understanding of how Roosevelt’s career progressed, and the effect he had on the country. There’s a lot to untangle, here. Roosevelt redesigned the country with the New Deal, and then helped reshape the world first with Lend-Lease, then WWII, then the United Nations. More than perhaps any president, Franklin Roosevelt made an impact on humanity. H. W. Brands did a marvelous job elucidating not only how he left his mark, but the obstacles FDR faced both at home and abroad.
He also didn’t shy away from the missteps. From FDR’s blatant attempt to circumvent the opposition of the Supreme Court, to his inaction on Civil Rights, to the internment of Japanese-Americans, to dragging his feet on opening the second front in Europe, to accusations that he could have done more to prevent the Holocaust, to more personal failings (like his infidelity).
In short, Brands does everything you want a biographer to do. He explores the subject, and fairly considers his life. He contextualizes the decisions and beliefs of the subject without losing the common thread that forms the story being told. Those are all good things……But I never really got pulled into the narrative. The closest Brands comes to really holding my interest is the descriptions of how Eleanor Roosevelt blossoms from a shy, self-conscious housewife into a strong and independent woman and leading political figure of her day. There’s a dimensionality to Eleanor that I never quite experience with FDR. Part of that may be the nature of the two people, but I think some of it (at least) is Brands. FDR was affected by polio in a significant way, and though more than a little time is given to this change, it never really feels central to the narrative.
But the change Eleanor goes through is both marked, and foundational to who she later becomes.
There are few political figures who had as great an impact on the United States as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I think that’s inarguable. Ronald Reagan, my previous biography, may have been the most visible politician of the latter half of the 20th century, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt has cast a shadow over every single person to follow him. His reach has extended into the 21st century to the point that progressivism today is still but a pale imitation of the new deal he offered us.
But in terms of this book, it is his wife that is the truly interesting subject.
