Product Description

FDR: The War President opens as Roosevelt has been re-elected to a third term and the United States is drifting toward a war that has already engulfed Europe. Roosevelt, as commander in chief, statesman, and politician, must navigate a delicate balance between helping those in Europe--while remaining mindful of the forces of isolation both in the Congress and the country--and protecting the gains of the New Deal, upon which he has spent so much of his prestige and power.

Kenneth S. Davis draws vivid depictions of the lives, characters, and temperaments of the military and political personalities so paramount to the history of the time: Churchill, Stalin, de Gaulle, and Hitler; Generals Marshall, Eisenhower, and MacArthur; Admiral Darlan, Chiang Kai-shek, Charles Lindbergh, William Allen White, Joseph Kennedy, Averell Harriman, Harry Tru-man, Robert Murphy, Sidney Hillman, William Knud-sen, Cordell Hull, Henry Morgenthau, Henry Stimson, A. Philip Randolph, Wendell Willkie, and Henry Wallace.

The portrait of Henry Hopkins, who interacted with many of these personalities on behalf of Roosevelt, is woven into this history as the complex, interconnected relationship it was. Hopkins burnished the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt and eased the way for their interactions with Stalin.

Another set of characters central to Roosevelt's life and finely drawn by the author includes Eleanor Roo-sevelt, Sara Roosevelt, Missy LeHand, Grace Tully, Princess Martha of Norway, and Daisy Suckley.

Integral to this history as well are the Argentina Conference, the Atlantic Charter and the beginnings of the United Nations, the Moscow Conference, lend-lease, the story of the building of the atomic bomb, Hitler's Final Solution and how Roosevelt and the State Department reacted to it, Pearl Harbor and war with Japan, the planning of Torch, and the murder of Admiral Darlan. All these stories intersect with the economic and social problems facing Roosevelt at home as the United States mobilizes for war.

The lessons and concerns of 1940-1943 as dissected in this book are still relevant to the problems and concerns of our own time. A recurrent theme is technology: Do people control technology, or does technology control people?

Kenneth Davis had the rare gift of writing history that reads with the immediacy of a novel; and though the outcome of this history is well known, the events and people depicted here keep the reader focused on an enthralling suspense story.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1343076 in Books
• Published on: 1986-09-12
• Released on: 1986-09-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 756 pages

From Library Journal
This well-regarded multipart work left off with FDR: the New York years, 1928-1933 ( LJ 12/1/85). Now a penultimate third volume treats the first presidential term. Roosevelt's programs in the major areas of Depression crisiscurrency, banking, agriculture, labor, regulation of industry, welfareare judged dispassionately, often critically. His approach was pragmatic, erratic, and essentially conservative, believes Davis, who finds that FDR succeeded not because of this or that piece of legislation, but through an intuitive grasp of his heroic historical role. Less scholarly than several standard studies, yet sound enough for academic use; too long for most casual readers, yet engaging as popular history, the book has appeal as well as limitations for both public and academic libraries. For all that have the earlier books. Robert F. Nardini, M. L. S., Concord, N.H.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap
FDR: The War President opens as Roosevelt has been re-elected to a third term and the United States is drifting toward a war that has already engulfed Europe. Roosevelt, as commander in chief, statesman, and politician, must navigate a delicate balance between helping those in Europe--while remaining mindful of the forces of isolation both in the Congress and the country--and protecting the gains of the New Deal, upon which he has spent so much of his prestige and power.

Kenneth S. Davis draws vivid depictions of the lives, characters, and temperaments of the military and political personalities so paramount to the history of the time: Churchill, Stalin, de Gaulle, and Hitler; Generals Marshall, Eisenhower, and MacArthur; Admiral Darlan, Chiang Kai-shek, Charles Lindbergh, William Allen White, Joseph Kennedy, Averell Harriman, Harry Tru-man, Robert Murphy, Sidney Hillman, William Knud-sen, Cordell Hull, Henry Morgenthau, Henry Stimson, A. Philip Randolph, Wendell Willkie, and Henry Wallace.

The portrait of Henry Hopkins, who interacted with many of these personalities on behalf of Roosevelt, is woven into this history as the complex, interconnected relationship it was. Hopkins burnished the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt and eased the way for their interactions with Stalin.

Another set of characters central to Roosevelt's life and finely drawn by the author includes Eleanor Roo-sevelt, Sara Roosevelt, Missy LeHand, Grace Tully, Princess Martha of Norway, and Daisy Suckley.

Integral to this history as well are the Argentina Conference, the Atlantic Charter and the beginnings of the United Nations, the Moscow Conference, lend-lease, the story of the building of the atomic bomb, Hitler's Final Solution and how Roosevelt and the State Department reacted to it, Pearl Harbor and war with Japan, the planning of Torch, and the murder of Admiral Darlan. All these stories intersect with the economic and social problems facing Roosevelt at home as the United States mobilizes for war.

The lessons and concerns of 1940-1943 as dissected in this book are still relevant to the problems and concerns of our own time. A recurrent theme is technology: Do people control technology, or does technology control people?

Kenneth Davis had the rare gift of writing history that reads with the immediacy of a novel; and though the outcome of this history is well known, the events and people depicted here keep the reader focused on an enthralling suspense story.

About the Author
A biographer of Eisenhower, Lindbergh, and Adlai Stevenson as well as a novelist, Kenneth S. Davis was awarded the prestigious Francis Parkman Prize for FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny, which was also a nominee for the National Book Award. In addition, his next two volumes on FDR were both chosen as among the ten best books of the year by The New York Times.

A graduate of Kansas State University, with a master of science degree from the University of Wisconsin and an honorary doctorate of letters from Assumption College, Davis was a journalism instructor at New York University, a war correspondent attached to General Eisenhower's headquarters, special assistant to Milton Eisenhower, the president of Kansas State University, a member of the State Department's UNESCO relations staff, editor of The Newberry Library Bulletin in Chicago, adjunct professor of English at Clark University, and an adjunct professor of history at both Kansas University and Kansas State University. Kenneth S. Davis died in June 1999.

Customer Reviews

The Man Behind the New Deal
I bought this book on a flyer in 1987, read it once and put it on the shelf. During a televised Clinton address from the Oval Office, I noticed on the credenza behind him "FDR: The New Deal Years" in its distinctive silver and red jacket. Well, if its good enough for the White House...so I read it again, and now understand why it stood on the President's desk. It's an outstanding work of narrative history. Volume one was awarded the Francis Parkman Prize, but this is clearly the next best in Davis's monumental five volumes on FDR and his times. It is a lively depiction of the New Deal and its famous characters, including Louis Howe, Harry Hopkins, the Brain Trust, Eleanor and Sara Delano all orbiting around the Sun King FDR. It is also an excellent analysis of how outright revolution was avoided and our capitalist system preserved in the darkest hours. But most of all it is an enjoyably facinating portrait of the man who everyone wanted to be near but almost no one, not even Eleanor, really knew.

High tide
Some people claim that Arthur Schlesinger wrote the definative history of the New Deal and FDR back in the 1950s. These same people probably are unfamiliar with this wonderful book by Kenneth Davis.

This is not just a history of the period of 1933-37, but an extended mediatation on how we are a nation are going to respond to the changes brought about by industrialization.

Do not be put off by this last statement because Davis is an excellent writer, historian and philosopher. The best part of this book deals with how social security came to be shaped in the form that it finally was. How all manner of elements came together for the legislation to be written. It is just remarkable.

Davis is evenhanded in this book and in the series as a whole. He identifies FDR's triumphs but at the same time is willing to be critical when he feels the actions warrent it.

Davis and his series have been recognized repeatedly although I believe that they probably were not given the praise that this series deserved. They are simply the best thing to be written on FDR by a historian.

Past is future
This really is a remarkable book and outstanding contribution to FDR scholarship. All of the books in this series are probably the best books on the life and times of Franklin Roosevelt, but I think this is one is the best.

In this, the second volume in the series Davis explores just how much of the early stages of FDR's presidency owed to his career as governor, how his concerns as governor of the state of New York were later transfered from Albany to Washington. Concerns with conservation and the power monopolies in these years were later to serve as the springboard for a number of New Deal initiatives.

Anyone wishing to learn more about the greatest president of the 20th century should look no further than this series of books by Mr. Davis. Sadly, Mr. Davis did not live to bring the series to its logical conclusion in 1945. Had he done so, this would be the definative study of FDR. As things are, it is likely to be the best biography for many years to come, despite some problems with vol. 4 and its premature conclusion.