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1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History
**New York Times Bestseller**
Jay Winik brings to life in “gripping” detail (The New York Times Book Review) the year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put more pressure than any other on an ailing yet determined President Roosevelt.
1944 was a year that could have stymied the Allies and cemented Hitler’s waning power. Instead, it saved those democracies—but with a fateful cost. Now, in a “complex history rendered with great color and sympathy” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Jay Winik captures the epic images and extraordinary history “with cinematic force” (Time).
1944 witnessed a series of titanic events: FDR at the pinnacle of his wartime leadership as well as his reelection, the unprecedented D-Day invasion, the liberation of Paris, and the tumultuous conferences that finally shaped the coming peace. But millions of lives were at stake as President Roosevelt learned about Hitler’s Final Solution. Just as the Allies were landing in Normandy, the Nazis were accelerating the killing of millions of European Jews. Winik shows how escalating pressures fell on an infirm Roosevelt, who faced a momentous decision. Was winning the war the best way to rescue the Jews? Or would it get in the way of defeating Hitler? In a year when even the most audacious undertakings were within the world’s reach, one challenge—saving Europe’s Jews—seemed to remain beyond Roosevelt’s grasp.
“Compelling….This dramatic account highlights what too often has been glossed over—that as nobly as the Greatest Generation fought under FDR’s command, America could well have done more to thwart Nazi aggression” (The Boston Globe). Destined to take its place as one of the great works of World War II, 1944 is the first book to retell these events with moral clarity and a moving appreciation of the extraordinary actions of many extraordinary leaders.
Jay Winik brings to life in “gripping” detail (The New York Times Book Review) the year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put more pressure than any other on an ailing yet determined President Roosevelt.
1944 was a year that could have stymied the Allies and cemented Hitler’s waning power. Instead, it saved those democracies—but with a fateful cost. Now, in a “complex history rendered with great color and sympathy” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Jay Winik captures the epic images and extraordinary history “with cinematic force” (Time).
1944 witnessed a series of titanic events: FDR at the pinnacle of his wartime leadership as well as his reelection, the unprecedented D-Day invasion, the liberation of Paris, and the tumultuous conferences that finally shaped the coming peace. But millions of lives were at stake as President Roosevelt learned about Hitler’s Final Solution. Just as the Allies were landing in Normandy, the Nazis were accelerating the killing of millions of European Jews. Winik shows how escalating pressures fell on an infirm Roosevelt, who faced a momentous decision. Was winning the war the best way to rescue the Jews? Or would it get in the way of defeating Hitler? In a year when even the most audacious undertakings were within the world’s reach, one challenge—saving Europe’s Jews—seemed to remain beyond Roosevelt’s grasp.
“Compelling….This dramatic account highlights what too often has been glossed over—that as nobly as the Greatest Generation fought under FDR’s command, America could well have done more to thwart Nazi aggression” (The Boston Globe). Destined to take its place as one of the great works of World War II, 1944 is the first book to retell these events with moral clarity and a moving appreciation of the extraordinary actions of many extraordinary leaders.
656 pages, Hardcover
First published September 8, 2015
272 people are currently reading
2344 people want to read
About the author
Jay Winik
11 books155 followersA New York Times best-selling author and American historian. He had a brief career in the U.S. government's foreign policy, involving civil wars around the globe, from the former Yugoslavia to El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Cambodia, including helping to create the United Nations plan to end Cambodia's civil war. In 1991, he took up writing history full-time.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 269 reviews
August 26, 2015
As a habitual non-fiction reader, subject matter sells me on a book usually as much as the prose style or the writer. And therefore, one of my biggest pet peeves with any book is when it promises to be about a subject and then doesn't really deliver on that promise. Such is the case with Jay Winik's new historical text, which would like you to believe it will be about the monumental epoch-altering events of the last full year of the Second World War.
And to be fair, Winik does provide a fair degree of information about the year in question. He is particularly detailed on the subject of Operation Overlord (the less well-known name for the D-Day invasion), and on the growing efforts, both within and without Washington, to get the Roosevelt administration to acknowledge and publicly act against the atrocities then being committed in the Nazi death camps. Winik's prose is strong, and he provides skillful thumbnail portraits of numerous influential figures of the era, including Henry Morgenthau, Roosevelt's influential secretary of the treasure, and Eduard Schulte, a German industrialist who was among the first to warn the world of what was going on in the wooded wastes of Nazi-occupied Poland and elsewhere. Winik particularly evokes the never-ending monotonous march towards death in Auschwitz by constantly returning, "on and on," to the trains rolling into the camps, packed suffocatingly with their never-to-leave cargo.
The problem is, for a book about 1944, not much of it is actually about 1944. Winik spends chapters on FDR's childhood and upbringing (and don't let the subtitle fool you, either; though Winik does a nice job contrasting FDR's singular mission with his failing health, the president nevertheless disappears from the book for dozens of pages at a time), the rise of Hitler and Nazism, uprisings in the Warsaw ghetto, and Rudolf Vrba's rare and successful escape from Auschwitz. All interesting, yes. But none of it happened in the year this book is supposed to be about. In fact, once you get to the D-Day invasion, the rest of the year is more or less rushed through in roughly the book's last 75 pages. In the meantime, the writer dwells on the violence at Normandy and the numberless horrors of the camps with a degree of detail that at times borders on the sadistic. I understand learning history so you are not doomed to repeat it, but the relentless details almost make it feel like that repetition itself is a form of doom.
I think that Winik had a number of things he wished to say about the war, the Holocaust, and FDR, but could not find a framing device for them that worked, so he shoehorned them into this half-accurate "1944" framework. It's not a badly written book, but if you want a book about the events of 1944 and nothing else, you're not going to get it here.
And to be fair, Winik does provide a fair degree of information about the year in question. He is particularly detailed on the subject of Operation Overlord (the less well-known name for the D-Day invasion), and on the growing efforts, both within and without Washington, to get the Roosevelt administration to acknowledge and publicly act against the atrocities then being committed in the Nazi death camps. Winik's prose is strong, and he provides skillful thumbnail portraits of numerous influential figures of the era, including Henry Morgenthau, Roosevelt's influential secretary of the treasure, and Eduard Schulte, a German industrialist who was among the first to warn the world of what was going on in the wooded wastes of Nazi-occupied Poland and elsewhere. Winik particularly evokes the never-ending monotonous march towards death in Auschwitz by constantly returning, "on and on," to the trains rolling into the camps, packed suffocatingly with their never-to-leave cargo.
The problem is, for a book about 1944, not much of it is actually about 1944. Winik spends chapters on FDR's childhood and upbringing (and don't let the subtitle fool you, either; though Winik does a nice job contrasting FDR's singular mission with his failing health, the president nevertheless disappears from the book for dozens of pages at a time), the rise of Hitler and Nazism, uprisings in the Warsaw ghetto, and Rudolf Vrba's rare and successful escape from Auschwitz. All interesting, yes. But none of it happened in the year this book is supposed to be about. In fact, once you get to the D-Day invasion, the rest of the year is more or less rushed through in roughly the book's last 75 pages. In the meantime, the writer dwells on the violence at Normandy and the numberless horrors of the camps with a degree of detail that at times borders on the sadistic. I understand learning history so you are not doomed to repeat it, but the relentless details almost make it feel like that repetition itself is a form of doom.
I think that Winik had a number of things he wished to say about the war, the Holocaust, and FDR, but could not find a framing device for them that worked, so he shoehorned them into this half-accurate "1944" framework. It's not a badly written book, but if you want a book about the events of 1944 and nothing else, you're not going to get it here.
October 22, 2015
According to Jay Winik, the author of two bestselling works of history, APRIL, 1865 and THE GREAT UPHEAVAL, during World War II every three seconds someone died. This should not be surprising based on the myriad of books that have been written about the war that fostered mass killing on a scale that had never been seen before. The Nazis perpetuated the industrialization of death almost until they ran out of victims. In the skies the combatants laid waste to civilian areas fostering terror and destruction unknown to mankind before the war. It is with this backdrop that Winik tells the story of World War II focusing on the role of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision making and his inability or refusal to lift a finger to assist the victims of Hitler’s Final Solution until it was too late. The book is entitled 1944: FDR AND THE YEAR THAT CHANGED HISTORY, but the title is misleading, because instead of focusing on the watershed year of 1944, the book seems to be a comprehensive synthesis of the wartime events that the author chooses to concentrate on. Winik opens his narrative by describing the Teheran Conference of November, 1943 which most historians argue was the most important wartime conference as the major outline of post war decision making took place. Here we meet Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, before Winik switches to the massive allied bombardment of Berlin that would shatter the faith of the German people in their government, as it could no longer protect them from the developing superiority of allied might.
The author offers very little if anything that is new dealing with the war. Its strength lies in its synthesis of the massive secondary literature that the war has produced. Winik has mined a voluminous amount of material, but very little of it is primary and one must ask the question; what purpose does the book have if it adds little that is not already familiar for bibliophiles of the war? I believe the author’s goal is to produce a general history of the conflict that allows the reader inside some of the most important decisions related to the war. Winik writes in an engrossing manner that creates a narrative that is accurate with sound analysis of the major characters and events discussed. The monograph is not presented in chronological order as the author organizes the book by concentrating on the period that surrounds the Teheran Conference of November, 1943 through D-Day and its immediate aftermath for the first 40% of the narrative, and then he shifts his focus on to the Final Solution that by D-Day was almost complete. Most of the decisions involving major battles are discussed in depth ranging from D-Day, the invasions of North Africa and Sicily, to biographies of lesser known characters like, Rabbi Stephen Wise, a leader of the American Jewish community, but also a friend of FDR; Rudolph Vrba and Eduard Schulte who smuggled out evidence of the Holocaust as early as November 1942 and made their mission in life to notify the west what was transpiring in the concentration camps with the hope that it would prod the allies to take action to stop it, or at least, lessen its impact.
Much of the narrative deals with the history of Auschwitz and its devastating impact on European Jewry, and Roosevelt’s refusal to take any concrete action to mitigate what was occurring, despite the evidence that he was presented. Winik delves deep into the policies of the State Department, which carried an air of anti-Semitism throughout the war. The attitude of the likes of Breckenridge Long are discussed and how they openly sought to prevent any Jewish immigration to the United States. When the issue of possibly bombing Auschwitz is raised we meet John J. McCloy who at first was in charge of rounding up Japanese-Americans and routing them to “relocation centers” in the United States, and is in charge of American strategic bombing in Europe who refuses to consider any air missions over Auschwitz arguing it was not feasible, when in fact allied planes were bombing in the region and had accidentally hit the camp in late 1944. Roosevelt was a political animal and refused to use any of his political capital, no matter how much pressure to assist the Jews. FDR was fully aware of what was taking place in the camps and did create some window dressing toward the end of the war with the creation of the War Refugees Board that did save lives, but had it been implemented two years earlier might have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Much of Winik’s descriptions and analysis has been written before and he has the habit of discussing a particular topic with an overreliance on a particular secondary source. A number of these works appear repeatedly, i.e.; Martin Gilbert’s Auschwitz and the Allies, David Wyman’s THE ABANDONMENT OF THE JEWS, Richard Breitman and Alan J. Lichtman’s FDR AND THE JEWS, James MacGregor Burns’ SOLDIER OF FREEDOM, and Ian Kershaw’s two volume biography of Hitler. There are a number of areas where Winik’s sources have been replaced by more recent monographs of which he should be familiar, i.e., when discussing Hitler’s invasion of Russia in June, 1941 the main source seems to be Kershaw, but David Murphy’s WHAT STALIN KNEW, Andrew Roberts’ STALIN’S WARS, and Evan Mawdsley’s THUNDER IN THE EAST would have enhanced the discussion. In addition, there are many instances when endnotes were not available, leaving the reader to wonder what they have just read is based on.
To Winik’s credit his integration of the state of FDR’s health throughout the book is very important. We see a Roosevelt who is clearly dying at a time when many momentous decisions must be made, but the president feels that he was in office when the war began, and he must complete his task. The effect of FDR’s health on decision making and the carrying out of policy has tremendous implications for the history of the time period. One of the more interesting aspects of Winik’s approach to his subject matter is how he repeatedly assimilates the plight of the Jews with other facets of the war. It seems that no matter the situation the author finds a way to link the Holocaust to other unfolding decisions and events, particularly during 1944 and after. The author also does a superb job describing the human element in his narrative. The plight and fears of deportees to Auschwitz, the anxiety of soldiers as they prepare for Operation Overlord, the chain smoking General Eisenhower as he awaits news of battles, and the fears and hopes of FDR on the eve of D-Day are enlightening and provide the reader tremendous insights into historical moments.
To sum up, if Winik’s goal was to write a general history of the Second World War, centering on the role of Franklin Roosevelt he is very successful as the book is readable and in many areas captivating for the reader. If his goal was to add an important new interpretation of the wartime decision making centering on FDR and 1944 as the turning point in the war, I believe he has failed. Overall, this is an excellent book for the general reader, but for those who are quite knowledgeable about World War II you might be disappointed.
The author offers very little if anything that is new dealing with the war. Its strength lies in its synthesis of the massive secondary literature that the war has produced. Winik has mined a voluminous amount of material, but very little of it is primary and one must ask the question; what purpose does the book have if it adds little that is not already familiar for bibliophiles of the war? I believe the author’s goal is to produce a general history of the conflict that allows the reader inside some of the most important decisions related to the war. Winik writes in an engrossing manner that creates a narrative that is accurate with sound analysis of the major characters and events discussed. The monograph is not presented in chronological order as the author organizes the book by concentrating on the period that surrounds the Teheran Conference of November, 1943 through D-Day and its immediate aftermath for the first 40% of the narrative, and then he shifts his focus on to the Final Solution that by D-Day was almost complete. Most of the decisions involving major battles are discussed in depth ranging from D-Day, the invasions of North Africa and Sicily, to biographies of lesser known characters like, Rabbi Stephen Wise, a leader of the American Jewish community, but also a friend of FDR; Rudolph Vrba and Eduard Schulte who smuggled out evidence of the Holocaust as early as November 1942 and made their mission in life to notify the west what was transpiring in the concentration camps with the hope that it would prod the allies to take action to stop it, or at least, lessen its impact.
Much of the narrative deals with the history of Auschwitz and its devastating impact on European Jewry, and Roosevelt’s refusal to take any concrete action to mitigate what was occurring, despite the evidence that he was presented. Winik delves deep into the policies of the State Department, which carried an air of anti-Semitism throughout the war. The attitude of the likes of Breckenridge Long are discussed and how they openly sought to prevent any Jewish immigration to the United States. When the issue of possibly bombing Auschwitz is raised we meet John J. McCloy who at first was in charge of rounding up Japanese-Americans and routing them to “relocation centers” in the United States, and is in charge of American strategic bombing in Europe who refuses to consider any air missions over Auschwitz arguing it was not feasible, when in fact allied planes were bombing in the region and had accidentally hit the camp in late 1944. Roosevelt was a political animal and refused to use any of his political capital, no matter how much pressure to assist the Jews. FDR was fully aware of what was taking place in the camps and did create some window dressing toward the end of the war with the creation of the War Refugees Board that did save lives, but had it been implemented two years earlier might have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Much of Winik’s descriptions and analysis has been written before and he has the habit of discussing a particular topic with an overreliance on a particular secondary source. A number of these works appear repeatedly, i.e.; Martin Gilbert’s Auschwitz and the Allies, David Wyman’s THE ABANDONMENT OF THE JEWS, Richard Breitman and Alan J. Lichtman’s FDR AND THE JEWS, James MacGregor Burns’ SOLDIER OF FREEDOM, and Ian Kershaw’s two volume biography of Hitler. There are a number of areas where Winik’s sources have been replaced by more recent monographs of which he should be familiar, i.e., when discussing Hitler’s invasion of Russia in June, 1941 the main source seems to be Kershaw, but David Murphy’s WHAT STALIN KNEW, Andrew Roberts’ STALIN’S WARS, and Evan Mawdsley’s THUNDER IN THE EAST would have enhanced the discussion. In addition, there are many instances when endnotes were not available, leaving the reader to wonder what they have just read is based on.
To Winik’s credit his integration of the state of FDR’s health throughout the book is very important. We see a Roosevelt who is clearly dying at a time when many momentous decisions must be made, but the president feels that he was in office when the war began, and he must complete his task. The effect of FDR’s health on decision making and the carrying out of policy has tremendous implications for the history of the time period. One of the more interesting aspects of Winik’s approach to his subject matter is how he repeatedly assimilates the plight of the Jews with other facets of the war. It seems that no matter the situation the author finds a way to link the Holocaust to other unfolding decisions and events, particularly during 1944 and after. The author also does a superb job describing the human element in his narrative. The plight and fears of deportees to Auschwitz, the anxiety of soldiers as they prepare for Operation Overlord, the chain smoking General Eisenhower as he awaits news of battles, and the fears and hopes of FDR on the eve of D-Day are enlightening and provide the reader tremendous insights into historical moments.
To sum up, if Winik’s goal was to write a general history of the Second World War, centering on the role of Franklin Roosevelt he is very successful as the book is readable and in many areas captivating for the reader. If his goal was to add an important new interpretation of the wartime decision making centering on FDR and 1944 as the turning point in the war, I believe he has failed. Overall, this is an excellent book for the general reader, but for those who are quite knowledgeable about World War II you might be disappointed.
November 27, 2019
This book, while interesting, would have one believe that the war in the Pacific was either a cake walk, or just not compelling enough to write about. At the very least the title is misleading.
April 6, 2017
I thought I’d read enough about World War II and the Holocaust at least to understand what was most important about each of these interlocked, milestone events in the history of the human race. I hadn’t. In Jay Winik’s book, 1944, I learned a great deal, especially about the Nazis’ so-called Final Solution. I recognized the names of the key players, of course — it’s impossible to live through the aftermath of that tragic era and read the news without absorbing those names — but it had never before made clear to me that Hitler and the SS became truly frenzied about exterminating the Jews of Europe only in the final stages of the war, when it was obvious to anyone (except perhaps Hitler himself) that Nazi Germany had lost.
I also found it illuminating to read the sad history of the U.S. response to the murder of European Jews. I’d been aware that many officials in the State Department were overtly anti-Semitic — but I’d had no idea of the deliberate steps they took to sabotage any action by FDR’s White House to save at least some of the Jews. Winik recounts this story in excruciating detail in 1944: “the State Department was now using the machinery of government to prevent, rather than facilitate, the rescue of the Jews,” he writes. “The fear seemed to be, not that the Jews would be marched to their deaths, but that they would be sent to the Allied nations.” Now I know that the Department has the blood of more than a million people staining its already sad record of amorality: yes, in the absence of the obfuscation, foot-dragging, and bureaucratic nonsense from key members of the Department, more than a million lives could have been saved.
For much of the war, Roosevelt himself was complicit in this policy. I’d known that. But now I know how quickly he was able to move once he’d been pushed to action. As Winik writes, “He could never quite see beyond the exigencies of winning the war and crafting the postwar structure of peace.”
With that said, however, 1944 is a curious book. For starters, whoever titled the book did not have its contents in mind: I suspect the marketing people at the book’s publisher, thinking that 1944 would sell better than a book entitled FDR and the Holocaust. Which is really the subject of this book. In fact, the events that truly took place in the year 1944 occupy relatively few pages.
The errant title is just one of the problems I had with 1944. I also found myself confused on many occasions because the author jumped around in time without making clear that he was about to do so. To reorient myself, I was forced to re-read paragraphs that didn’t seem to make sense because they were out of sequence.
The author, Jay Winik, is a popular “public historian.” Trained at Yale and the London School of Economics, he has written three major nonfiction works. 1944 is the most recent.
I also found it illuminating to read the sad history of the U.S. response to the murder of European Jews. I’d been aware that many officials in the State Department were overtly anti-Semitic — but I’d had no idea of the deliberate steps they took to sabotage any action by FDR’s White House to save at least some of the Jews. Winik recounts this story in excruciating detail in 1944: “the State Department was now using the machinery of government to prevent, rather than facilitate, the rescue of the Jews,” he writes. “The fear seemed to be, not that the Jews would be marched to their deaths, but that they would be sent to the Allied nations.” Now I know that the Department has the blood of more than a million people staining its already sad record of amorality: yes, in the absence of the obfuscation, foot-dragging, and bureaucratic nonsense from key members of the Department, more than a million lives could have been saved.
For much of the war, Roosevelt himself was complicit in this policy. I’d known that. But now I know how quickly he was able to move once he’d been pushed to action. As Winik writes, “He could never quite see beyond the exigencies of winning the war and crafting the postwar structure of peace.”
With that said, however, 1944 is a curious book. For starters, whoever titled the book did not have its contents in mind: I suspect the marketing people at the book’s publisher, thinking that 1944 would sell better than a book entitled FDR and the Holocaust. Which is really the subject of this book. In fact, the events that truly took place in the year 1944 occupy relatively few pages.
The errant title is just one of the problems I had with 1944. I also found myself confused on many occasions because the author jumped around in time without making clear that he was about to do so. To reorient myself, I was forced to re-read paragraphs that didn’t seem to make sense because they were out of sequence.
The author, Jay Winik, is a popular “public historian.” Trained at Yale and the London School of Economics, he has written three major nonfiction works. 1944 is the most recent.
November 14, 2015
I believe that Jay Winik is attempting to claim that FDR failed the Jews or at least could have done more to save them from the Holocaust. Winik claims that FDR chose inaction time after time about stopping Hitler’s Final Solution. Winik thought that FDR could have rallied the country in his fire side chats and that he could have dealt with the anti-Semitism in his own cabinet. Winik does spend time discussing FDR’s health in 1944. Winik claims FDR missed his own “Emancipation Proclamation Moment” by not stopping the holocaust. Winik also provides a review of the history of World War II.
The story is interesting but in my opinion Winik has failed to make his case. I do agree the United States could have done more to save the Jews. We could have taken in more refugees, earlier but by 1944 it was too late. I think that FDR and Churchill decided that winning the War as fast as possible was the best approach and in 1944 they may have been correct. According to Winik the British government took the early claims about the concentration camp seriously whereas, he claims the U.S. government buried the reports. Winik does discuss the “War Refugee Board” operated by the Treasury Department; it is credited with rescuing more than 200,000 Jews from the Holocaust. Winik uses the board’s success to show that FDR could have done more.
The book is well written and researched and Winik is a great storyteller. The book is an interesting read for those interested in the subject but it does not live up to its title. I picked up some great trivia information to add to my collection. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Arthur Morey does a good job narrating the book. The book is fairly long at just over 21 hours.
The story is interesting but in my opinion Winik has failed to make his case. I do agree the United States could have done more to save the Jews. We could have taken in more refugees, earlier but by 1944 it was too late. I think that FDR and Churchill decided that winning the War as fast as possible was the best approach and in 1944 they may have been correct. According to Winik the British government took the early claims about the concentration camp seriously whereas, he claims the U.S. government buried the reports. Winik does discuss the “War Refugee Board” operated by the Treasury Department; it is credited with rescuing more than 200,000 Jews from the Holocaust. Winik uses the board’s success to show that FDR could have done more.
The book is well written and researched and Winik is a great storyteller. The book is an interesting read for those interested in the subject but it does not live up to its title. I picked up some great trivia information to add to my collection. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Arthur Morey does a good job narrating the book. The book is fairly long at just over 21 hours.
November 10, 2015
Winik tries to condense a pivotal year in history to just a few hundred pages. He was largely unsuccessful. While 1944 is generally readable, it's structure makes too many leaps back and forth in time and has absolutely no discussion of the role of the Pacific War. One comes away from reading this overview as a damnation of the Allies for failing to take on Nazi Germany's Holocaust. At the end, I wonder if this was Winik's entire point? If you are looking for general WWII, European- front, Holocaust or leadership biographies, there are many, finer works to read than 1944.
November 30, 2015
This is a really unimpressive book. The writing and scholarship are poor. Sailing on his previous book and trying to weave that into this book. There are much better books out there about this period.
February 28, 2016
There is some useful discussion here about the level of discussion that was going on within American government circles during the period when the Holocaust was at its height. Otherwise, most of the material in here has already been covered elsewhere.
January 24, 2023
4.5. I loved Winik’s “April 1865,” so I was eager to dive into this one. It didn’t disappoint. The book is sprawling and wide-ranging in focus—perhaps too much so—but the history is perceptively and poignantly told.
February 16, 2016
The book starts out giving Roosevelt's family history, followed by his time in politics, his campaign and presidency and of course ending with his death and the liberation of the Concentration Camps in Europe. This book was an eye opener into our history during WWII in which Roosevelt is very well known for. I can't believe the American Politics that were used to try and slow or better yet prevent Jewish refugees coming into our Country during the WWII. I am shocked at all the denials even with first hand accounts and testimony from concentration camp escapees and countless pleading from Eleanor we stalled as long as we did in FINALLY helping the Jews.
Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt also known as the "Big 3" of the Allied Powers spent allot of time together during the war trying to find ways to defeat Hitler. Although they finally did, I have to say IT TOOK LONG ENOUGH FOR AMERICA TO GET OFF THEIR BUTTS. (sorry just my opinion)
The book was well written, the pictures are very interesting, the stories of concentration camp escapees and survivors touch your heart and anger you. America received allot of applause and gratitude when the camps were liberated. I just wonder if they would feel the same if they knew what our government was doing to stall such help. DELAY DELAY DELAY it was basically impossible for the Jews to receive any assistance from the American community with the requirements that our government placed upon them. Such a sad time in our history. To this day I still don't understand how a nation could fall under the spell of one raving lunatic...... Lets hope we learn from history and don't make the same mistake twice because although we are a free country now who knows!? This could be us one day. Needing to be rescued by other countries and to have them turn their backs on us or not make us the first priority would not surprise me. Karma is a bitch.
This book is now in my "favorites" shelf. I have always been interested in the Holocaust and the survivors how they endured and persevered but I never really paid attention to how it all came about and what went on prior to and during WWII. I am glad I read it and learned allot.
Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt also known as the "Big 3" of the Allied Powers spent allot of time together during the war trying to find ways to defeat Hitler. Although they finally did, I have to say IT TOOK LONG ENOUGH FOR AMERICA TO GET OFF THEIR BUTTS. (sorry just my opinion)
The book was well written, the pictures are very interesting, the stories of concentration camp escapees and survivors touch your heart and anger you. America received allot of applause and gratitude when the camps were liberated. I just wonder if they would feel the same if they knew what our government was doing to stall such help. DELAY DELAY DELAY it was basically impossible for the Jews to receive any assistance from the American community with the requirements that our government placed upon them. Such a sad time in our history. To this day I still don't understand how a nation could fall under the spell of one raving lunatic...... Lets hope we learn from history and don't make the same mistake twice because although we are a free country now who knows!? This could be us one day. Needing to be rescued by other countries and to have them turn their backs on us or not make us the first priority would not surprise me. Karma is a bitch.
This book is now in my "favorites" shelf. I have always been interested in the Holocaust and the survivors how they endured and persevered but I never really paid attention to how it all came about and what went on prior to and during WWII. I am glad I read it and learned allot.
August 27, 2016
The author crafted the beginning of his story expertly. He could not have done so to a greater extent if he made it up. He contrasted FDR's fading physical strength with the thunderous forces around him and then with the more immediate impact of the war on a particular young man trying to escape the Holocaust. But just as he ratcheted up the dramatic tension and had the reader expecting this kind of mastery as 1944 unfolded, he went into the pain of the historian as a storyteller – background.
Granted, I like history because I want to know how we got to now, or even to the now in the historian's focus, but the book lost something in the writer's decision in this respect. This is especially true since SO much of his background before 1944 is clustered around what the allies new and should have acted on with respect to the Final Solution. I can't dismiss the momentous notice of that issue, and I don't want to, but he does become less storyteller and more crusader judging people who did their bit and more – and most of them have been dead for a long time.
Granted, I like history because I want to know how we got to now, or even to the now in the historian's focus, but the book lost something in the writer's decision in this respect. This is especially true since SO much of his background before 1944 is clustered around what the allies new and should have acted on with respect to the Final Solution. I can't dismiss the momentous notice of that issue, and I don't want to, but he does become less storyteller and more crusader judging people who did their bit and more – and most of them have been dead for a long time.
May 14, 2022
Interesting book.
This book kind of had 3-4 threads going at once. Roosevelt’s wartime presidency, the Holocaust implementation and European Jews response, and some ancillary th reads like the Churchill/Stalin/Roosevelt conferences.
The thread on Roosevelt was interesting as it focused on his health issues and how he dealt with it.
The thread on the Holocaust was fascinating as escapees and/or European Jewish leaders tried to get the word out, but no one wanted to believe them. It was hard to believe, but I think many, especially our state department and Roosevelt didn’t want the pain of Helping. It really was despicable.
The other thread of the summit conferences between the three leaders was great. The tension, distrust, and attempts at fostering relationships was fascinating.
Overall a good book.
This book kind of had 3-4 threads going at once. Roosevelt’s wartime presidency, the Holocaust implementation and European Jews response, and some ancillary th reads like the Churchill/Stalin/Roosevelt conferences.
The thread on Roosevelt was interesting as it focused on his health issues and how he dealt with it.
The thread on the Holocaust was fascinating as escapees and/or European Jewish leaders tried to get the word out, but no one wanted to believe them. It was hard to believe, but I think many, especially our state department and Roosevelt didn’t want the pain of Helping. It really was despicable.
The other thread of the summit conferences between the three leaders was great. The tension, distrust, and attempts at fostering relationships was fascinating.
Overall a good book.
February 7, 2020
I enjoyed the book. I learned a lot, but like other reviewers, I question having “1944” in the title. It’s theme is so much more and it spans well beyond one year. Woven throughout the book is the horrific, really unimaginable Holocaust and the tragic unthinkable lack of response to it by allied forces and the U.S. government in particular. It was and is disturbing to think about, and the powerful imagery created by the author cannot and should not be forgotten.
March 28, 2016
Six stars! One of the best World War II history books ever! I need six stars for this book, but we only have five. That's too bad. Looking over all the other World War II era-related books on my shelves that I have read (most of which I have not yet written a review here), this one book stands out as exceptional above virtually all of them (there may be less than a handful of exceptions, if I were to think about it seriously).
First of all, the book's title leads one to presume that its focus is 1944. I think that is unfortunate, because it's simply not the case IMHO (as a reader). As you might expect you cannot describe everything of significance that happened in 1944 without first covering the early years of the war (and not just with respect to the United States), and the early years of the major personalities (which go beyond just FDR in the subtitle). The title actually prevented me from buying the book on Amazon, because it put me off that much. But I happened to see it on the new arrivals or best sellers shelf at the library, and checked it out along with some others just for grins. Boy am I glad I did so. The first chapter almost convinced me that the focus of the book was going to be 1944, but then the scope widened thereafter and I realized that it was going to be very good (at a minimum) and that it had a lousy title.
Having read more than three hundred "history" and "personality" and "military" books about the second world war, I did not expect to find too much new material (despite the fact that many recent books that concern themselves with that period do have new material, possibly because of newly-available archives and declassified records), and, not knowing anything about the author, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. I figured I'd spend enough time to determine it was the expected waste of time, but before I got through chapter 3, it was clear that it was going to be hard to put down.
The writing is superb and it makes for engaging reading. Some books, even some good ones, are just boring to read, or difficult to read. I don't know why; I make myself finish them for whatever value they do offer if it look like it's going to be a net positive). Other books, especially this one, are easy to read, keep you interested, surprise you with where it's going next, and if you're lucky, reveal information you've never before encountered or explain it more clearly than others ever have. This is just such a book: it hits on all of these cylinders. There is new (for me) information, and the historical context, the why and who and how and when, is set more clearly. I don't think you could write an interesting history book that flowed completely chronologically. This book offers a pretense of doing that, but it in fact does not.
Up until I read this book, I had never read much anywhere else about the fact that there was any widespread knowledge of the extent to which Hitler and the Nazis were killing Jews (and others they considered undesirable). Even the programs you see on the History and Smithsonian and Military History channels make it seem like the concentration camps and the holocaust were discovered in early 1945 as U.S. and Russian soldiers happened upon by-then-mostly-evacuated concentration camps.
That, as many of you that will read this no doubt already know, was not the case. There were many in positions of power that knew what was actually happening, and major U.S. newspapers had published the fundamental facts. Somehow, I missed that in all the other books I've read. I don't know why or how (unless it was simply missing from the ones I chose), but it's all made abundantly clear in this book.
And that's not all. Other information new to me is also exceptionally well covered. I suspect that if I had read this book two decades ago (although that's obviously not possible), I might have made some better selections of the other books I've read. In any event, this is certainly one of the best five books on World War II that I have ever read. It should be twice as long as it is, but I will now search for other books that fill in the obvious gaps left by the fact that the author chose to write only one book, "1944," instead of ten: "1914-1918," "1919-1932," "1933-1938," "1939-1940," "1941," "1942," "1943," "1944," "1945," and "1946-1950."
If you want to get into World War II history via a single book, and can tolerate the fact that the involvement and efforts of the U.S. Navy are not sufficiently covered, this book in my opinion is an excellent place to start. Any criticism of the shortcomings of the topics and events covered in this book are no doubt directly related to the results of the author's decision to at least pretend to concentrate on the events of 1944, so the point is probably not a fair one. But what did make the cut to be included in this book is done so well that I found myself wanting much more detail and background for the material on literally every page.
Even if you've read hundreds of World War II history books, if you have not yet read this one, I submit that it is Well Worth Reading.
First of all, the book's title leads one to presume that its focus is 1944. I think that is unfortunate, because it's simply not the case IMHO (as a reader). As you might expect you cannot describe everything of significance that happened in 1944 without first covering the early years of the war (and not just with respect to the United States), and the early years of the major personalities (which go beyond just FDR in the subtitle). The title actually prevented me from buying the book on Amazon, because it put me off that much. But I happened to see it on the new arrivals or best sellers shelf at the library, and checked it out along with some others just for grins. Boy am I glad I did so. The first chapter almost convinced me that the focus of the book was going to be 1944, but then the scope widened thereafter and I realized that it was going to be very good (at a minimum) and that it had a lousy title.
Having read more than three hundred "history" and "personality" and "military" books about the second world war, I did not expect to find too much new material (despite the fact that many recent books that concern themselves with that period do have new material, possibly because of newly-available archives and declassified records), and, not knowing anything about the author, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. I figured I'd spend enough time to determine it was the expected waste of time, but before I got through chapter 3, it was clear that it was going to be hard to put down.
The writing is superb and it makes for engaging reading. Some books, even some good ones, are just boring to read, or difficult to read. I don't know why; I make myself finish them for whatever value they do offer if it look like it's going to be a net positive). Other books, especially this one, are easy to read, keep you interested, surprise you with where it's going next, and if you're lucky, reveal information you've never before encountered or explain it more clearly than others ever have. This is just such a book: it hits on all of these cylinders. There is new (for me) information, and the historical context, the why and who and how and when, is set more clearly. I don't think you could write an interesting history book that flowed completely chronologically. This book offers a pretense of doing that, but it in fact does not.
Up until I read this book, I had never read much anywhere else about the fact that there was any widespread knowledge of the extent to which Hitler and the Nazis were killing Jews (and others they considered undesirable). Even the programs you see on the History and Smithsonian and Military History channels make it seem like the concentration camps and the holocaust were discovered in early 1945 as U.S. and Russian soldiers happened upon by-then-mostly-evacuated concentration camps.
That, as many of you that will read this no doubt already know, was not the case. There were many in positions of power that knew what was actually happening, and major U.S. newspapers had published the fundamental facts. Somehow, I missed that in all the other books I've read. I don't know why or how (unless it was simply missing from the ones I chose), but it's all made abundantly clear in this book.
And that's not all. Other information new to me is also exceptionally well covered. I suspect that if I had read this book two decades ago (although that's obviously not possible), I might have made some better selections of the other books I've read. In any event, this is certainly one of the best five books on World War II that I have ever read. It should be twice as long as it is, but I will now search for other books that fill in the obvious gaps left by the fact that the author chose to write only one book, "1944," instead of ten: "1914-1918," "1919-1932," "1933-1938," "1939-1940," "1941," "1942," "1943," "1944," "1945," and "1946-1950."
If you want to get into World War II history via a single book, and can tolerate the fact that the involvement and efforts of the U.S. Navy are not sufficiently covered, this book in my opinion is an excellent place to start. Any criticism of the shortcomings of the topics and events covered in this book are no doubt directly related to the results of the author's decision to at least pretend to concentrate on the events of 1944, so the point is probably not a fair one. But what did make the cut to be included in this book is done so well that I found myself wanting much more detail and background for the material on literally every page.
Even if you've read hundreds of World War II history books, if you have not yet read this one, I submit that it is Well Worth Reading.
September 1, 2018
This book is mis-titled and disorganized in narrative.
It is NOT a comprehensive look at the critical decisions that FDR made in 1944. As such, author Jay Winik missed an opportunity for a focused examination of the major concerns and issues that reached the President’s desk in a critical 12 month period as his health deteriorated.
Still, there is a reason to read sections on anti-Semitism in the State Department in the 1930s and 1940s and the failure to admit refugees attempting to flee Nazi Germany.
There is a riveting description of how two Auschwitz inmates, against enormous odds, escaped to warn the world of the death camps, a message that was greeted with skepticism and not acted upon. (Hint: to find this, use the index because it doesn’t fall into logical place in the narrative due to indiscipline in organizing subject matter and timeline.)
There is an informative profile of Breckinridge Long, the anti-Semitic State Department official who made it virtually impossible for Jews to get visas to enter the United States when it was still possible to flee Nazi Germany.
As the country today debates the moral responsibility and risk of admitting Syrian refugees, one of the most interesting sections of the book deals with how the immigration debate was framed in the late 1930s through 1941 to bar Jews from entering America. “Long’s unwavering belief was that all refugees were potential spies and constituted a menace to US national security.” (Sound familiar?)
Eleanor Roosevelt tried to get the President to overrule Long’s policy, but failed. She later told her son that her inability to get the US to admit more refugees was the “deepest regret” of her life.
Winik jumps around so much that you wonder whether he pulled previously written popular histories of World War II off his bookshelf more or less at random and summarized them as he went along. The book opens in late 1943 with the Tehran conference where FDR, Churchill and Stalin met. I expected this to be a curtain-raiser to 1944, as the book’s title implies, but the author then jumps to Roosevelt’s formative years, his political ascendancy, and the New Deal. The author bounces back and forth between Nazi atrocities and wartime decisions faced by FDR which makes it difficult to evaluate how such decisions were influenced by changing circumstances as the war developed.
Thus Winik discusses the Normandy invasion before recounting the earlier North African campaign. And beginning on page 359 there is an abrupt, 17 page digression into Hitler’s rise to power.
If the book had dealt with the decisions FDR made in 1944, as the title implies, it surely would have included the decisions the President had to make regarding the war in the Pacific, such as adjudicating competing strategies of General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz in the defeat of Japan, and the task of balancing the competing demands of the European and Pacific theaters of war. There is no examination of the mobilization of industrial capacity on the American home front in 1944, and only brief reference to the atomic bomb project.
In summary, this is a flawed effort and a disappointment except for a few passages.
It is NOT a comprehensive look at the critical decisions that FDR made in 1944. As such, author Jay Winik missed an opportunity for a focused examination of the major concerns and issues that reached the President’s desk in a critical 12 month period as his health deteriorated.
Still, there is a reason to read sections on anti-Semitism in the State Department in the 1930s and 1940s and the failure to admit refugees attempting to flee Nazi Germany.
There is a riveting description of how two Auschwitz inmates, against enormous odds, escaped to warn the world of the death camps, a message that was greeted with skepticism and not acted upon. (Hint: to find this, use the index because it doesn’t fall into logical place in the narrative due to indiscipline in organizing subject matter and timeline.)
There is an informative profile of Breckinridge Long, the anti-Semitic State Department official who made it virtually impossible for Jews to get visas to enter the United States when it was still possible to flee Nazi Germany.
As the country today debates the moral responsibility and risk of admitting Syrian refugees, one of the most interesting sections of the book deals with how the immigration debate was framed in the late 1930s through 1941 to bar Jews from entering America. “Long’s unwavering belief was that all refugees were potential spies and constituted a menace to US national security.” (Sound familiar?)
Eleanor Roosevelt tried to get the President to overrule Long’s policy, but failed. She later told her son that her inability to get the US to admit more refugees was the “deepest regret” of her life.
Winik jumps around so much that you wonder whether he pulled previously written popular histories of World War II off his bookshelf more or less at random and summarized them as he went along. The book opens in late 1943 with the Tehran conference where FDR, Churchill and Stalin met. I expected this to be a curtain-raiser to 1944, as the book’s title implies, but the author then jumps to Roosevelt’s formative years, his political ascendancy, and the New Deal. The author bounces back and forth between Nazi atrocities and wartime decisions faced by FDR which makes it difficult to evaluate how such decisions were influenced by changing circumstances as the war developed.
Thus Winik discusses the Normandy invasion before recounting the earlier North African campaign. And beginning on page 359 there is an abrupt, 17 page digression into Hitler’s rise to power.
If the book had dealt with the decisions FDR made in 1944, as the title implies, it surely would have included the decisions the President had to make regarding the war in the Pacific, such as adjudicating competing strategies of General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz in the defeat of Japan, and the task of balancing the competing demands of the European and Pacific theaters of war. There is no examination of the mobilization of industrial capacity on the American home front in 1944, and only brief reference to the atomic bomb project.
In summary, this is a flawed effort and a disappointment except for a few passages.
September 8, 2015
There are a few surprises in Jay Winik's new history of World War II. First, although the title is 1944, it covers the whole war and then some. So don't expect a day by day account of the year or even a particular emphasis on 1944. It's all there. Second, the theme is the Final Solution and Franklin Roosevelt's inaction on doing anything to stop the Holocaust.
A third surprise was that Vinik states in the notes that he drew extensively on popular histories of the war, such as the works of Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose, James Mcgregor Burns, Ian Kershaw, Douglas Brinkley, Robert Dallek, and more. So if you have read many of these works, you may not learn very much that is new to you. And another surprise is that although Vinik includes a large section of notes at the end of the book, they are of the kind that uses "collective references." In other words, the notes will credit certain sources for several paragraphs or pages rather than individual sentences. I understand how much work goes into keeping and organizing notes. However, it isn't very helpful to go to the notes to find out the source of a particular fact only to read "for these paragraphs I have relied on the following sources among others" followed by a dozen named books and articles.
Still, I was left with plenty to think about from Vinik's work, including the question, probably often asked but new to me, did the Final Solution drain Nazi resources to the point that they lost the war because of it?
A third surprise was that Vinik states in the notes that he drew extensively on popular histories of the war, such as the works of Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose, James Mcgregor Burns, Ian Kershaw, Douglas Brinkley, Robert Dallek, and more. So if you have read many of these works, you may not learn very much that is new to you. And another surprise is that although Vinik includes a large section of notes at the end of the book, they are of the kind that uses "collective references." In other words, the notes will credit certain sources for several paragraphs or pages rather than individual sentences. I understand how much work goes into keeping and organizing notes. However, it isn't very helpful to go to the notes to find out the source of a particular fact only to read "for these paragraphs I have relied on the following sources among others" followed by a dozen named books and articles.
Still, I was left with plenty to think about from Vinik's work, including the question, probably often asked but new to me, did the Final Solution drain Nazi resources to the point that they lost the war because of it?
August 7, 2017
This is one of the saddest books I have ever read as Winik tells in great detail the story of President Franklin Roosevelt's learning about Germany's systematic imprisonment and murder of millions of European Jews (the Holocaust) in late 1943 and resisted for the next 18 months every effort to bomb the concentration camps, bomb the train tracks leading to Auschwitz, or disrupt the German's specific plans to annihilate the Jewish people. Winik begins the book with a well-written introduction to Roosevelt's personal life and political career and ends the book with abundant respect and praise for FDR.
However, Winik explains that while Roosevelt was as great a president as Abraham Lincoln, FDR missed his "emancipation proclamation moment" - which is when Lincoln shifted the focus of the Civil War from reuniting the states to freeing the slaves. I'm certain that Winik hoped by examining Roosevelt's life that he could find an explanation for why Roosevelt turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, especially when it was in his power to save hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews who were the last to enter the gates of Auschwitz in winter of 1944. Winik says that Roosevelt could have saved millions of Jews and set a precedent that might have led to US intervening to stop the murder of more millions in Cambodia and Rwanda. Why FDR did nothing? Winik never could understand.
However, Winik explains that while Roosevelt was as great a president as Abraham Lincoln, FDR missed his "emancipation proclamation moment" - which is when Lincoln shifted the focus of the Civil War from reuniting the states to freeing the slaves. I'm certain that Winik hoped by examining Roosevelt's life that he could find an explanation for why Roosevelt turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, especially when it was in his power to save hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews who were the last to enter the gates of Auschwitz in winter of 1944. Winik says that Roosevelt could have saved millions of Jews and set a precedent that might have led to US intervening to stop the murder of more millions in Cambodia and Rwanda. Why FDR did nothing? Winik never could understand.
September 28, 2015
While Winik does a credible job, there is no new ground here.
January 18, 2021
I struggle with how to review this book. First, it is written so cinematically. I listened to the audiobook, and I felt like a movie in startling, sometimes disturbing, color was in front of my eyes. At the same time, this book was not what I expected from the title (which is all I read before I got the audiobook from the library). It is focused on the year of 1944, yes, but it spends a large amount of time contextualizing that year with information from 1941 forward and, despite its claims to describe other events, focuses mostly on FDR's (mis)handling of the revelation of the Final Solution. This is not a book for the faint of heart; the atrocities of Nazi death camps are rendered down to the smallest details. Yes, other events are in there, but they begin to feel like side paths away from the main argument which absolutely made me want to scream. I'd never seen the political situation surrounding America's response to the Holocaust detailed quite this minutely and thus never understood the full implication in the way I do now. At the same time, I am not sure I agree with Winik's final chapter, which essentially ends for America to involve itself more in foreign affairs in a particular way. However, despite that, I would still recommend this book for those interested in learning more about how Americans conducted themselves during WWII that doesn't boil down to "FDR is amazing and we saved the world!" Those things can be true and false at the same time.
March 18, 2023
First, this book is very disorganized. Second, the principal subjects of this book are not 1944 or FDR. Third, this book provides zero insight or novel interpretation of the period it purported to be about. It is often repetitive and fails to follow through on many of the most interesting tertiary historical characters with whom you may be unfamiliar. It fails to discuss any of the events in the Pacific Theater and generally falls short on so many fronts that it seems more like a first draft that has yet to be edited.
Primarily, this is a book of the horrors of the Holocaust and the many, many failures of the US and the Allies to intervene in any meaningful way despite clear evidence of the atrocities being committed by Germany. Although the story of the Holocaust is one that is certainly worth telling: (A) that is not what this book is ostensibly about or what I was looking for when I read it and (B) even that aspect of this book is flawed in that, although it conveys the evil and tragedy, it is incredibly disjointed and provides very little depth.
This book was an incredibly long, tedious, and painful read in many more ways than one.
Primarily, this is a book of the horrors of the Holocaust and the many, many failures of the US and the Allies to intervene in any meaningful way despite clear evidence of the atrocities being committed by Germany. Although the story of the Holocaust is one that is certainly worth telling: (A) that is not what this book is ostensibly about or what I was looking for when I read it and (B) even that aspect of this book is flawed in that, although it conveys the evil and tragedy, it is incredibly disjointed and provides very little depth.
This book was an incredibly long, tedious, and painful read in many more ways than one.
August 25, 2025
I read a fair amount of this heartbreaking story, but had to abandon it because it was too difficult to read emotionally based on real life stories about concentration camps and what the Jews went through because of the Nazis. I learned many things I did not know and I couldn't ingest any more of the horror. 9 one thing surprised me was that the US was helping the Soviet Union during the war by sending ammunition and fuel and jeeps, tanks etc. I've never read that before. another sandwich broke my heart was reading that the Nazis had train cars designed which purposely caused the many innocent people in them to suffocate. this is a really informative well researched book if you could take it. I couldn't.
March 8, 2025
Fascinating account of (mainly) 1944 with an emphasis on the holocaust and the response or lack thereof when the US discovered what was happening. Often harrowing, the book recounts in detail the scale of the horrors during WWII.
October 26, 2018
I learned several things I didn't know about FDR and the time period.
August 16, 2019
Very interesting and informative
April 14, 2024
Disappointing. Ends up being more of a pop-history of 1944 than a focused look at FDR's decision-making as his life wound down quickly before the war's end. I felt the author reveled too much in the storytelling here when the story, widely covered well if not better in other books, is already interesting on its own. In my opinion, you'd be better served picking up a specific book about D-Day, or a biography of FDR, or any account of the Holocaust.
Also annoying. Why is there a chapter in the middle of this book called “1943?” Why does the Pacific Theatre hardly get any play—did it not happen in 1944? Why, in a book titled “1944: FDR…” does much of the book revolve neither around the year 1944 nor FDR? I don’t really know what this book is trying to do.
Also annoying. Why is there a chapter in the middle of this book called “1943?” Why does the Pacific Theatre hardly get any play—did it not happen in 1944? Why, in a book titled “1944: FDR…” does much of the book revolve neither around the year 1944 nor FDR? I don’t really know what this book is trying to do.
February 2, 2017
This was an interesting book, but it seems to be misleading in its title. The book seems to spend just a much time discussing the lead up to 1944 as it does to the year itself, and is very narrowly concerned with the European Theatre of the war. And within that already narrow scope, the author is primarily focused on humanitarian aspects of the war as opposed to military operations. A more appropriate title would probably be "How FDR Mismanaged the American Response to the Unfolding Holocaust".
The author presents thought-provoking and fascinating materials within his area of concern. I admit to having had a primarily grade-school understanding of our government's reaction to the Holocaust; namely, that we were largely ignorant of the scope of the genocide, but as we became aware were morally outraged and rushed through France and Germany as quickly as possible to do what we could to halt the killing. As with every story in history, this is of course a gross simplification. Winik delves into the particulars of what the government knew, when they knew it, and their often very lackluster response. In fairness to FDR, I don't think there was ever a magic button he could have pushed that would have stopped the genocide in its tracks. The Nazis were nothing if not ingenious and determined in their pursuit of murdering people. However, the author argues fairly convincingly that the Americans might have at least stemmed the tide had they managed to pull together the slightest bit of political will to do so.
The problem with these sorts of "coulda, woulda, shoulda" books is that it is impossible to remove the benefit of hindsight from the analysis. I think it's also a convincing argument that if FDR had pushed too far too soon in interventionist policies, the very isolationist American public may have pushed back even harder, making any entry into the way that much more delayed. Also there is the fact that even though I have read first-hand testimonies, seen pictures and video of the camps when they were liberated by the Allies, and 100% believe the veracity of the historical record, the Holocaust completely beggars belief. If I have a hard time comprehending the possibility of such a thing happening after the fact, it must have been exponentially more difficult in the early 1940s. There is simply no frame of reference. Tragically, there is perhaps little wonder that it took far too long for the world to appreciate the scale of what was really happening.
The author discusses a number of things the government might have done to help mitigate the genocide. For one thing, he paints the State Department as particularly antagonistic to the cause; they operated on a Depression-inspired policy of accepting as few immigrants as humanly possible, including political refugees. He also suggests that anti-Semitism played a significant factor in many layers of government decision-making; the idea being that government officials perceived that Americans didn't want Germany to mistreat its Jewish citizens, but may not have been prepared to welcome tens of thousands of these refugees as their neighbors. That's a rather humbling thought, isn't it? And so current, given so many people's attitudes about Syrian refugees today. Winik also promotes the idea that our military might have bombed the concentration camps and the rail lines leading to them. The railroads would have been a no-brainer in hindsight, but I think you could debate the ethics of intentionally killing civilian prisoners for the greater good until Doomsday and not come up with a convincing answer.
While this book wasn't exactly what I expected, it was certainly thought-provoking and a worthwhile read.
The author presents thought-provoking and fascinating materials within his area of concern. I admit to having had a primarily grade-school understanding of our government's reaction to the Holocaust; namely, that we were largely ignorant of the scope of the genocide, but as we became aware were morally outraged and rushed through France and Germany as quickly as possible to do what we could to halt the killing. As with every story in history, this is of course a gross simplification. Winik delves into the particulars of what the government knew, when they knew it, and their often very lackluster response. In fairness to FDR, I don't think there was ever a magic button he could have pushed that would have stopped the genocide in its tracks. The Nazis were nothing if not ingenious and determined in their pursuit of murdering people. However, the author argues fairly convincingly that the Americans might have at least stemmed the tide had they managed to pull together the slightest bit of political will to do so.
The problem with these sorts of "coulda, woulda, shoulda" books is that it is impossible to remove the benefit of hindsight from the analysis. I think it's also a convincing argument that if FDR had pushed too far too soon in interventionist policies, the very isolationist American public may have pushed back even harder, making any entry into the way that much more delayed. Also there is the fact that even though I have read first-hand testimonies, seen pictures and video of the camps when they were liberated by the Allies, and 100% believe the veracity of the historical record, the Holocaust completely beggars belief. If I have a hard time comprehending the possibility of such a thing happening after the fact, it must have been exponentially more difficult in the early 1940s. There is simply no frame of reference. Tragically, there is perhaps little wonder that it took far too long for the world to appreciate the scale of what was really happening.
The author discusses a number of things the government might have done to help mitigate the genocide. For one thing, he paints the State Department as particularly antagonistic to the cause; they operated on a Depression-inspired policy of accepting as few immigrants as humanly possible, including political refugees. He also suggests that anti-Semitism played a significant factor in many layers of government decision-making; the idea being that government officials perceived that Americans didn't want Germany to mistreat its Jewish citizens, but may not have been prepared to welcome tens of thousands of these refugees as their neighbors. That's a rather humbling thought, isn't it? And so current, given so many people's attitudes about Syrian refugees today. Winik also promotes the idea that our military might have bombed the concentration camps and the rail lines leading to them. The railroads would have been a no-brainer in hindsight, but I think you could debate the ethics of intentionally killing civilian prisoners for the greater good until Doomsday and not come up with a convincing answer.
While this book wasn't exactly what I expected, it was certainly thought-provoking and a worthwhile read.
October 11, 2019
This is a great book for anyone who wants to try to understand why it took so long for Roosevelt and the USA to recognize and believe there was a crisis of unspeakable proportions going on in Europe with all the Jews and any political “enemy” of Hitler’s Third Reich. It is one of the most difficult and disturbing accounts of how politics weighed more heavily than the need of help to human beings. Had the US, England and others really taken to heart and LISTENED to what was being told to them, by reliable sources, millions of lives would have been saved!!! Churchill and Roosevelt did not act soon enough. But, to understand that both countries really just exited WWI and the countrymen of both societies were war weary when Hitler was climbing to power in the 30’s, does shed light on why those two countries hesitated to get involved. It is still, in my opinion, sad, disturbing and really unforgivable. Such a waste of resources and opportunities was a travesty. And I also do agree with Reviewer; Matt, that the title 1944....is misleading. Not much here in the way of a comprehensive telling of events in 1944. I still learned a great deal in reading this book. And I am saddened by “what could have been, yet wasn’t “.
March 15, 2019
Continuing on my trend of historical non fiction as my audio books of choice for all my long walking, I picked up this book under the assumption this was going to be about the events of WW2 through the Roosevelt administration. I think this book was mis titled, as most of its focus is on the Final Solution and extermination of the Jews in Europe and how the US did next to nothing about it. As a super FDR lover, it's hard for me to really stomach. This book was extremely well done and the stories within it about Nazi atrocities and the bravery and courage of the Jews during that final year will leave you utterly speechless. Great balance of general Roosevelt history (doesn't get any juicier than that - affairs, polio, paralysis, etc) and WW2 history but this book is very heavy on talk of concentration camps, Nazi death squads and just overall the most brutal elements of WW2. Not for the faint of heart, but highly recommended from one history lover to the next.
January 13, 2016
This 500+ page book, with more than 100 pages of notes in addition, is not just a treatment of 1944 as part of World War II, and in that sense the title and description of the book are a little misleading. The author goes back and explains the history behind each turning point reached in 1944, with attention to the backgrounds and health of FDR and Hitler (but not Churchill and Stalin), the occupation of Europe, the Nazi opening of a second front by invading Russia, the Allied campaigns in North Africa and Italy, and the cross-channel invasion that became known as D-Day. The military campaigns are not described in detail. The focus of the book is the Holocaust, with a detailed description of the workings of Auschwitz and the Einsatzgruppen and their collaborators on the Eastern Front, a more general description of the deportation and killings of the Jews in the Balkans and elsewhere, and a blow-by-blow account of who among the Allies knew what, and when, about the mass murder of Europe's Jews by the Nazis. The effects of FDR's health and the U.S. State Department's tragic delays--which seem to indict Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy and Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long for impeding any attempts to help the Jews of Europe--receive special, detailed emphasis. Winik also describes attempts and successes in rescuing or deterring the persecution of Jews, captured French Resistance fighters, and other endangered groups to show that the United States could have done much more. So in many ways this book is focused on the Holocaust--a worthy subject, but one that has received a great deal of treatment by other authors. Winik does a good job of pulling together the various sources concerning the Holocaust, but it would have been more forthcoming if the descriptions of the book in marketing material and the book's title had noted the author's emphasis on detailing the history of the Holocaust with respect to Allied knowledge and almost complete failure to respond. This book would be a great overview for readers new to that subject; for those who have already read a lot about it, the book is less valuable.
January 11, 2016
Review: 1944 FDR and the Year That Changed History by Jay Winik
From the title, one might expect that the book focuses on FDR and what he did in 1944. That would be incorrect.
While one might argue that every year changes history, from the perspective of WW II, the year that changes history was 1945, when the war ended, or 1939, when the war began, or 1941, when the US entered the war, or 1943, when the Russians were defeating the Germans before Moscow and Stalingrad, such that Hitler’s defeat was a matter of time and blood, but 1944 could be a fourth place candidate along with 1942.
In any case, the year 1944 occupies a minority of the book, as does FDR. When Winik discusses 1944, it is usually from the perspective of rumors and gossip of missed opportunities to rescue Jews, as if the pursuit if the war were not just the best means of rescuing Jews but, in fact, the only practical means.
When Winik discusses FDR, he repetitiously talks about his failing health, but he also tries to make a case that FDR did not care about Nazi atrocities. Of course, Winik fails, as he simply refuses to acknowledge the legitimate workings of government and the military, preferring his myth to the reality of how government and the military actually function.
Reading this book, one would never learn the many sorts of people, numbering in the millions, other than Jews toward whom the Nazis were nasty. What Winik does best is to describe, over and over, the Nazis’ efficiency in killing [only] Jews, particularly at Auschwitz. I suppose he finds it surprising that subsequent attempts at genocide, occurring every few years, have never achieved the same level of efficiency.
This is probably the worst book I have ever read precisely because of its misleading title and obvious agenda.
Mr. Graziano is the author of From the Cross to the Church. The Emergence of the Church from the Chaos of the Crucifixion.
From the title, one might expect that the book focuses on FDR and what he did in 1944. That would be incorrect.
While one might argue that every year changes history, from the perspective of WW II, the year that changes history was 1945, when the war ended, or 1939, when the war began, or 1941, when the US entered the war, or 1943, when the Russians were defeating the Germans before Moscow and Stalingrad, such that Hitler’s defeat was a matter of time and blood, but 1944 could be a fourth place candidate along with 1942.
In any case, the year 1944 occupies a minority of the book, as does FDR. When Winik discusses 1944, it is usually from the perspective of rumors and gossip of missed opportunities to rescue Jews, as if the pursuit if the war were not just the best means of rescuing Jews but, in fact, the only practical means.
When Winik discusses FDR, he repetitiously talks about his failing health, but he also tries to make a case that FDR did not care about Nazi atrocities. Of course, Winik fails, as he simply refuses to acknowledge the legitimate workings of government and the military, preferring his myth to the reality of how government and the military actually function.
Reading this book, one would never learn the many sorts of people, numbering in the millions, other than Jews toward whom the Nazis were nasty. What Winik does best is to describe, over and over, the Nazis’ efficiency in killing [only] Jews, particularly at Auschwitz. I suppose he finds it surprising that subsequent attempts at genocide, occurring every few years, have never achieved the same level of efficiency.
This is probably the worst book I have ever read precisely because of its misleading title and obvious agenda.
Mr. Graziano is the author of From the Cross to the Church. The Emergence of the Church from the Chaos of the Crucifixion.
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