No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Home Front in World War II
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- ISBN13: 9780743539654
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
From the bestselling leader of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedysand Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream comes a compelling chronicle of a nation and its leaders during the period when modern America was made. Presenting an aspect of American history that has never been fully told, Doris Kearns Goodwin describes how the isolationist and divided United States of 1940 was unified under the extraordinary leadership of Franklin Roosevelt to become, only five years later, the preeminent economic and military power in the world.
Using diaries, interviews, and White House records of the president’s and first lady’s comings and goings, Goodwin paints a detailed, intimate portrait not only of the daily conduct of the presidency during wartime but of the Roosevelts themselves and their extraordinary constellation of friends, advisers, and family tree, many of whom lived with them in the White House.
Bringing to bear the tools of both history and biography, No Ordinary Time relates the unique tale of how Franklin Roosevelt led the nation to victory against seemingly insurmountable odds and, with Eleanor’s essential help, forever changed the fabric of American society.Amazon.com Review
A compelling chronicle of a nation and its leaders during the period when modern America was made. With an mysterious feel for detail and a novelist’s grasp of drama and depth, Doris Kearns Goodwin brilliantly narrates the interrelationship between the inner workings of the Roosevelt White House and the destiny of the United States. Goodwin paints a comprehensive, intimate portrait that fills in a past gap in the tale of our nation under the Roosevelts.
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FDR was the second worst president in U.S. history after Bill Clinton. He bankrupted the U.S. economy, he made us a socialist nation, and brainwashed us with filthy Soviet propaganda during World War II. Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Roosevelt worshipper. Steer clear of works like this and as a replacement for read John Flynn’s “The Roosevelt Myth”.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Goodwin has written yet another “biography” of FDR and Eleanor which omits more history than it includes. If you are looking for an objective examination of the New Deal and the events leading up to WW II, or an explanation of why FDR was surrounded by so many communists, this is not the book for you. There are additional books suggested as alternatives that would be a much better source of information as a replacement for of this propaganda. Goodwin admits to being a liberal, and this book shows that on every page. She cannot even bring herself to chat about Eleanor’s lesbian relationships in a candid and honest way. The only new revelation I establish in the book was the fact that some newspaper reporters who wrote about the administration really LIVED in the White House while spewing their propaganda in the name of objective television journalism. If you want to read a book that reinforces your belief that FDR was nearly a flawless human, then read this book. If you want to read some actual history, such as FDR’s 1940 battle where he branded anyone who said he was preparation on taking the US into the war in Europe as a liar, while preparation at the same time to do so, and doing so with his restriction of oil to Japan that guaranteed the attack on the US, there are many better books than this. Goodwin is an admitted plagarist, and she would have been better off stealing some legitimate material for this book than publishing this tripe.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I like reading history, so I was really looking forwards to reading this book. It was a fantastic disappointment. The leader clearly adored Eleanor, and she gets a very thorough treatment in the book. The President, though, remained a total mystery. What made him reflect? What did he really reflect? What made him such a fantastic leader? Don’t read this book for answers to persons questions because they are not there. At bottom, the book was a lengthy and ponderous treatment of Eleanor Roosevelt and her influence on the President and policy. That tale could have been told in about 300 fewer pages.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Doris Kearns Goodwin is the kind of earnest Liberal who it is hard to dislike. But this book joins David McCullough’s Truman, Arthur Schlesinger’s A Thousand Days and Robert Dallek’s LBJ biography to perfect the set of hagiographies of the pre-Carter Democrat Presidents. It is an extremely lightweight, but very readable account of the Roosevelts during the War years. It is ideal for anyone who wants a glossy portrait of the topic and does not want to have any of their vacuous preconceptions called into question.
As the book opens, in May 1940, we are open with the truly bizarre menagerie that was the Roosevelt White House. Franklin and Eleanor have separate bedrooms–and have been alienated since Eleanor establish out about his affair with Lucy Mercer in 1918. Missy LeHand, FDR’s “secretary & hostess”, lives on the third floor. Lorena Hickcock, Eleanor’s “special friend” lives in the bedroom across the hall from the first lady. Sara Roosevelt, FDR’s mother, is frequently on hand, as are Harry Hopkins (FDR’s friend & Eleanor’s ally), Joe Lash (the young left-winger & future biographer whom Eleanor likes), Princess Martha of Norway (who FDR shares intimate moments with), and on and on… But Goodwin assures us that all of these relationships are perfectly straightforward and innocent.
Goodwin briefly describes FDR’s childhood. She trots out the well worn tale of his domineering mother, his blackballing by the Porcellian Club at Harvard, etc. All of which place him with an “anxiety to please”. But, she never really connects the dots & explores how this trait (a weakness/might that he shares with Reagan and Clinton), and it’s resulting trend to dither over decisions, lead him to needlessly hurt & confuse people. As a replacement for the chaos that attended his governing style and his personal relationships is open as a kind of intentional creative force.
Of course, FDR’s paralysis from polio is open as the influential experience in his life. It is hard to imagine that it would not shape his character somehow, but did it have a beneficial effect? She accepts Eleanors statement that, “Anyone who has gone through fantastic suffering is bound to have a greater sympathy and understanding of the problems of mankind.” This is balderdash. They’re likely to know the suffering of others who are crippled. But the fantastic mass of mankind is not handicapped and if his polio led FDR to govern as if all men are dependents, this is something that needs to be examined and dealt with. As a replacement for we are assured that FDR had a special understanding, that you and I don’t have, because of his disease.
In the nation meanwhile, eight years of the New Deal has still left the country with a 17% unemployment rate. But Goodwin assures us that the New Deal has been a loud success. And now a second crisis (the War) approaches which is even more fearful than the first (the Depression). What can she possibly mean by this? In what sense was World War II, especially in it’s early stages, a dire crisis for America? We were never seriously threatened. There was never a chance of the Nazis winning & holding power in Europe. What crisis?
Suppose it was a crisis, why did it take FDR two years to get us into the War? (Even then, only the bombing of Pearl Harbor made it possible.) If FDR was a fantastic leader, why were these leadership skills not evident prior to December 7, 1941.
At any rate, War in Europe rages. FDR faces a choice that honestly few President’s ever faced. Should he run for a third term. Now George Washington was one of the few who could really have won a third term, but he considered it more vital that the Nation be governed by laws and not men, so he stepped down. Following his example, no additional President had stood for a third election. But Goodwin barely acknowledges the fact that FDR’s choice to run was a significant step on the way to the Imperial Presidency which finally came a cropper under JFK, LBJ & Nixon.
Later, when FDR really runs & wins a fourth term, she not only ignores this issue, she ignores the fact that he was a dying man, with small chance of finishing his term. It was an act of extraordinary irresponsibility to place the country in a position where it would be governed by a virtual unknown in time of war. But by this time, as one observer remarked “…he had stopped to be a person; he was simply the president. If something was excellent for him, it was excellent; if it had no function for him as president, it didn’t exist.”
Here are a few additional issues that warrant fuller treatment:
1) Did the internment of the Japanese flow from something within FDR? He regularly used hateful language in describing persons, like the America Firsters, who disagreed with him. Was he prone to seeing the Japanese as enemies, because it was simple for him to imagine enemies?
2) What was the point of taking Europe away from the Nazis and giving it to the Soviets? Was that his intent?
3) When the war finished US debt was 127% of GNP. If our current debt of maybe 60% is so dreadful, as I’m sure she argued during the Reagan years, then how could he have saddled us with twice that amount?
4) FDR used the Greer incident to justify convoying British ships. He claimed that a U-boat fired on the US ship Greer lacking provocation. This was a lie and as Goodwin points out, it bore bitter fruit in the Tonkin Gulf. But isn’t such deceitfulness an vital part of FDR’s career? He cheated on Eleanor (understandably perhaps, since she once told a daughter that sex was “an suffering to be borne”), lied about his marriage, lied about his physical condition, etc. Wasn’t lying his modus operandi?
Goodwin answers none of these questions, & for the most part doesn’t raise them, because it’s probably never occurred to her to question them. She started work on this book believing the Roosevelts were demi-gods, but establish she’d underestimated them.
As a all-purpose proposition, I’d recommend the book for persons of limited intellectual curiosity.
GRADE: C+
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
As a student who has been forced to read this book for school, I must say it’s not as terrible as I expected it to be. Sure, it takes me a whopping twenty minutes to read ten freakin pages (and this isn’t the ONLY book I have for summer reading), but it’s really a lot more appealing than just reading my history textbook (yeah I have to read a chapter of that TOO this summer!) because it tells history as a tale that is much eastier to tell to. In conclusion, summer reading sucks and teachers want us to have no life!
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5