Franklin D. Roosevelt

the long version

Volume 1: Franklin D. Roosevelt, consensus choice as one of the great presidents, led the American people through the two major crises of modern times. The first volume of an epic two-part biography, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 1882-1939 presents FDR from a privileged Hyde Park childhood through his leadership in the Great Depression to the ominous buildup to global war. Roger Daniels revisits the sources and closely examines Roosevelt's own words and deed to create a twenty-first century analysis of how Roosevelt forged the modern presidency. Daniels's close analysis yields new insights into the expansion of Roosevelt's economic views: FDR's steady mastery of the complexities of federal administrative practices and possibilities; the ways the press and presidential handlers treated questions surrounding his health: and his genius for channeling the lessons learned from an unprecedented collection of scholars and experts into bold political action. Revelatory and nuanced, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 1882-1939 reappraises the rise of a political titan and his impact on the country he remade. -- from dust jacket. Volume 2: Having guided the nation through the worst economic crises in its history. Franklin Delano Roosevelt by 1939 had turned much of his focus to a world at the brink of war. The second part of Roger Daniel's biography forcuses on FDR's growing mastery in foreign affairs. Relying on FDR's own words to the American people and eyewitness accounts of the man and his accomplishments, Daniels reveals a chief executive orchestrating an immense wartime effort. Roosevelt had effective command of military and diplomatic information and unprecedented power over strategic military and diplomatic affairs. He directed the creation of an Arsenal of Democracy that armed the Allies, while inventing the United Nations to ensure a lasting postwar peace. FDR achieved these aims while expanding general prosperity, limiting inflation, and continuing liberal reform in the face of an increasingly conservative and hostile Congress. Although his death denied him the chance to see the war's end, events in the former year of the war assured him that the victory he had done so much to bring about would not be long delayed. A compelling reconsideration of Roosevelt the president and campaigner, The War Years, 1939-1945 provides new views and vivid insights about a towering figure - and six years that changed the world. -- from dust jacket.