Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

by H.W. Brands

A sweeping, magisterial biography of the man generally considered the greatest president of the twentieth century, admired by Democrats and Republicans alike. Traitor to His Class sheds new light on FDR's formative years, his remarkable willingness to champion the concerns of the poor and disenfranchised, his combination of political genius, firm leadership, and matchless diplomacy in saving democracy in America during the Great Depression and the American cause of freedom in World War II.

Drawing on archival materials, public speeches, personal correspondence, and accounts by family and close associates, acclaimed bestselling historian and biographer H. W. Brands offers a compelling and intimate portrait of Roosevelt’s life and career.

Brands explores the powerful influence of FDR’s dominating mother and the often tense and always unusual partnership between FDR and his wife, Eleanor, and her indispensable contributions to his presidency. Most of all, the book traces in breathtaking detail FDR’s revolutionary efforts with his New Deal legislation to transform the American political economy in order to save it, his forceful—and cagey—leadership before and during World War II, and his lasting legacy in creating the foundations of the postwar international order.

Traitor to His Class brilliantly captures the qualities that have made FDR a beloved figure to millions of Americans.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Presidents, American History, Politics, Biography Memoir

896 pages, Hardcover

First published November 4, 2008

About the author

H.W. Brands is an acclaimed American historian and author of over thirty books on U.S. history, including Pulitzer Prize finalists The First American and Traitor to His Class. He holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his PhD. Originally trained in mathematics, Brands turned to history as a way to pursue his passion for writing. His biographical works on figures like Franklin, Jackson, Grant, and both Roosevelts have earned critical and popular praise for their readability and depth. Raised in Oregon and educated at Stanford, Reed College, and Portland State, he began his teaching career in high schools before entering academia. He later taught at Texas A&M and Vanderbilt before returning to UT Austin. Brands challenges conventional reverence for the Founding Fathers, advocating for a more progressive and evolving view of American democracy. In addition to academic works, his commentary has featured in major documentaries. His books, published internationally and translated into multiple languages, examine U.S. political, economic, and cultural development with compelling narrative force. Beyond academia, he is a public intellectual contributing to national conversations on history and governance.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“He is the truest friend; he has the farthest vision; he is the greatest man I’ve ever known.”
- Sir Winston Churchill, speaking of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1943


Having recently finished a book on President Herbert Hoover, it seemed only natural to move on to his successor in office – and the man in whose shadow he has disappeared: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Finding a book about FDR is easy. Indeed, finding a thousand books on FDR is easy. You literally have to type only those three letters into a browser, and you get all the options in the world. The challenge comes in picking the right one. There are biographies aplenty, both single and multi-volumes. There are books on FDR and his wife, Eleanor; on FDR and his friendship with Churchill; on FDR as a commander-in-chief; on FDR and the Great Depression. There are collections of his letters, his speeches, and his fireside chats. With Roosevelt, as with Lincoln, there are many angles of approach.

I settled on H.W. Brands’ Traitor to His Class for a couple reasons. First off, despite reading extensively about FDR in the context of World War II, I’ve never tackled a full-scale, birth-to-death biography. Once I’d decided to go the bio route, it was a no-brainer to pick one by Brands. He is fast becoming one of my favorite author-historians. I’ve enjoyed several of his earlier works (The Age of Gold; Lone Star Nation; and Andrew Jackson), and he absolutely knocked his biography on U.S. Grant (The Man Who Saved the Union) out of the park. Brands is a good historian and writer, and he knows the immense value of solid storytelling.

I also like Brands because he is not a torch-bearing partisan. He’s not out there to build statues or tear them down. To the contrary, he is able to recognize the contributions of historical figures as diverse as Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. In a hyper partisan time, it means something to me that Brands is able to write about both the Age of Roosevelt and the Age of Reagan without foaming at the mouth. Because of this, I respect his judgments as derived from the evidence, rather than shaping the evidence to fit his judgments. I didn't want a hagiography, and I definitely didn't want some hack teardown. I wanted a biography that paid its due to an inarguably great president while also critiquing his many failings, shortcomings, and mistakes.

Brands divides his 616-page biography into thirds. The first third is devoted to FDR’s early life, including his birth into easy wealth and privilege, his entrance into Democratic politics as a New York State Senator, his service as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I, and his battle with the effects of polio, which weakened his legs nearly to the point of uselessness. It is this latter struggle, a debilitating and unexpected shock to an active young man, that probably forever altered his outlook, both morally and politically. Would FDR have related to the “common man” so closely without his affliction? Could he have? It seems unlikely. To that end, I found Brands’ passages regarding Roosevelt’s creation of the Warm Springs rehabilitation institute to be quite insightful.

The second third of Traitor to His Class begins in 1929 with the stock market crash and subsequent economic depression. It follows Roosevelt as he wins the presidency, institutes the New Deal, and continues to juggle both the Great Depression and a widening world war overseas. Hot off a book on Hoover and the Depression (Herbert Hoover in the White House), this was the section that interested me most. Overall, I think Brands does a good job with it. He has written extensively about American capitalism, so he has fluency in the subject matter. He gives credit where it’s due, and blame as well. His assessment of what worked and what did not is very rational. He acknowledges that FDR’s programs did not end the Depression (he does not even engage with the arguments, fashionable in certain circles, that he prolonged it), but that he did change – for a time, if not forever – the interaction between government and business. Through all his interventions, Roosevelt never wavered in his core conviction in support of capitalism; ultimately, he sought instead to restrain the excesses that threatened both everyday people and capitalist theory itself. The New Deal, as Brands notes, was a mixture of both “structurally conservative” and radically progressive programs. In the end, though, the Great Depression was beyond anyone’s ability to simply solve, and it only ended in the massive gear-up for total war.

The final third of Traitor to His Class is given over to the war years. It covers FDR’s attempts to prepare America for a world war (via changes to the Neutrality Act, institution of the draft, and Lend Lease), his struggle with America First isolationists (who felt burned regarding America’s intervention in WWI and were intent on keeping the country out of round two), and of course his tenure as a wartime president. There is nothing wrong with this section, but I’ve been over it so many times that nothing really stood out. Besides, this aspect of Roosevelt’s career has already been handled masterly by Doris Kearns Goodwin in No Ordinary Time.

Brands is not a florid prose stylist, and he does not have the space to give us the glorious biographical tangents indulged by the likes of Robert Caro or Edmund Morris. Still, he has a keen knack for narrative momentum, and does a great job of balancing a wide-angled overview with more intimate set pieces. He finds the occasion to relate the stories within the bigger story, which is imperative for making things come alive. As I’ve said before, and which I’ll say again, if I just wanted the bottom line facts, I’d go to a Roosevelt wiki or read a timeline. With a biography, I want much more. I want a sense of the man, what it was like to be in his presence, how he made his decisions, and why. Brands accomplishes this. While FDR has always been an elusive figure (which he intended, it seems), there are a lot of primary sources related to him, and Brands makes good use of them. He seamlessly integrates contemporary recollections into his own portraiture, giving you enough different viewpoints to give us at least an approximation of the real FDR. He also hones in on certain important relationships, especially his strange, estranged, and captivating relationship with Eleanor. And every once in awhile, Brands will step aside and deliver some reasoned speculation about his subject that attempts to interpret the reasoning behind some of his momentous choices.

This is a pretty big book, and the font seems small, making it seem bigger (of course, the font seems smaller to me every day). Even so, there is no way Traitor to His Class can cover every aspect of Roosevelt’s life. Entire volumes have been devoted to Roosevelt’s Supreme Court picks, and his court packing plan. Here, that topic only gets a couple pages. Certain figures are almost entirely written out of the story. (New Dealer Tommy “the Cork” Corcoran, for instance, gets only one brief mention). Still, I think Brands does a really good job of at least touching on all the high points.

I liked FDR coming into this book, and frankly, nothing was going to change my fundamental opinion. Thus, Traitor to His Class did not do much to form my opinion of Roosevelt. It did, however, give me a deeper appreciation of why I liked him in the first place.

Roosevelt was a man of vision. Perhaps more than any president before him, he cared about the welfare of the ordinary citizens of his nation. The ones who tended to suffer the most during financial panics or economic downturns or in times of drought or flood. He saw a world in which an aging farmer without a pension might be given security in old age; a world in which electricity was not a luxury for the few, but a necessity for the many; a world in which a person could put their money in the bank without fear of losing it; a world in which good people banded together to stop the bad. He was not entirely successful. He was not without flaws. But his contradictions and complications are part of what make him so attractive and intriguing. He is, next to Lincoln, among the most relatable presidents. Despite his wealth, despite the extraordinary power he accumulated, he was and remains utterly human, which is to say, utterly fallible.

Brands does an extraordinary job with Roosevelt. But it is Eleanor, treated so shabbily at times by her husband, who captured him best in her memoirs.

"I decided to accept the fact that a man must be what he is, life must be lived as it is," Eleanor Roosevelt wrote. "You cannot live at all if you do not learn to adapt yourself to life as it happens to be. All human beings have failings; all human beings have temptations and stresses."

Her thoughts must have turned to her husband's dalliances, events to which she had made her peace.

"Men and women who live together through long years get to know one another’s failings, but they also come to know what is worthy of respect and admiration in those they live with and in themselves," she added.

She summed her thoughts by writing what might be Franklin Roosevelt's most fitting epitaph:

"If at the end one can say: ‘This man used to the limit the powers that God granted him; he was worthy of love and respect and of the sacrifices of many people, made in order that he might achieve what he deemed to be his task,’ then that life has been lived well and there are no regrets.”

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title implies that the book is going to be about FDR defying the social and financial elite from which he sprang. Fortunately, I didn't let this narrow and negative title deter me because this turned out to be a comprehensive biography encompassing far more than the New Deal and devoting very little text to the "traitor of his class" concept.

There are more pages on FDR's relationship with Louis Howe, alone, than there is for his "betrayal" of his "class".

The observations of FDR's relationship with Uncle Teddy, Eleanor and Mother Sara are in the context of family and politics, not a betrayal of values. There is little mention of the Astors, Vanderbilts or other prominent families of the era. If there is a statement on "class" it is that FDR is a not so rich outsider among the very elite.

Throughout the book Brand demonstrates an FDR style. It holds for the press, staff, and fellow politicians as well as with Churchill and Stalin. Roosevelt characteristically gives them what they think is the story, policy or commitment that they want to hear, but when the words are parsed, the statement is an illusion.

Brand shows how partisan criticism of Roosevelt flowed from Republicans regardless of the truth. Criticism culminates on p. 697 as the obviously fact challenged "Republican congressman William Lamertson says Roosevelt lobbied the War Department to ensure his sons not be sent to combat zones" for which there are no facts.

This is a sweeping biography, covering a life of many facets. Each of these facets deserves a book, and for some there are excellent volumes such as Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship and Eleanor & Franklin: The Story of Their Relationship Based on Eleanor Roosevelt's Private Papers.

I've read a few Roosevelt books and material of this era, but this is the first to analyze the effect of Roosevelt's polio on his relationships and world view. According to Brand, FDR's onset of polio in midlife strengthened Eleanor and Louis Howe through his increased dependence on them and gave him insight into the plight of those who suffer. Brand does not avoid the logistics to be considered for a president and politician and effects of Roosevelt's health on others. The part of Roosevelt visiting the war wounded in Hawaii is incredibly moving.

This is a very good overview of Roosevelt. With a life so sweeping, an overview is all that can be expected in 800 pages. It is readable throughout, in some parts it's a page turner. Brand's presentation of World War II can bring tears to your eyes. While this is a big chunk for the casual reader, I recommend it for those interested in Roosevelt and his time.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

My father was eleven when FDR became president, twenty-three and serving in the SW Pacific when he died. FDR, with the depression and the war, substantially shaped a generation and still informs our world. This book gives a positive representation of what the man and his world were like.

Although we tend to think of the public figure, author Brands pays substantial attention to FDR's family and childhood, his early career with the Navy Department and New York state, and his affectional relationships. His wife, Eleanor, mother of their six children, is treated at length, also quite positively, this book providing her biography as well.

Although almost 900 pages long, I found this book to be a page-turner, so attractive that I went to bed early in order to get a substantial amount of it in before falling asleep each day.

[Donald Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A long book with an almost comprehensive rendition of the life of the subject. The idea of gathering the details to assemble such a work is daunting. The author's perspective was not hostile but did not hide his blemishes or apologize for his shortcomings. The book is a great review of history of the last few generations but also offered insight and facts not commonly covered in more generic histories. It was well written, easy to follow and provided helpful background and context.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winston Churchill missed the funeral. The demands of the war prevented a journey to America. But the prime minister had been bracing himself emotionally for the loss of his partner [Roosevelt]. At the close of the Casablanca conference, Roosevelt made ready to leave. Churchill stopped him. “You cannot go all this way to North Africa without seeing Marrakech,” he said. “Let us spend two days there. I must be with you when you see the sunset on the snows of the Atlas Mountains.” Roosevelt put off his departure, and he and Churchill drove the hundred and fifty miles across the desert together. They spoke of the war and politics and of the history of the region and the future of the world.

Traitor To His Class garnered H.W. Brands the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2009.

This 900 page book benefits from even pacing and a strictly chronological approach to Roosevelt’s life. The writing is quite good and the level of research along with well placed quotations are exactly what one would expect in a first rate biography.

In particular the coverage and writing about FDR’s relationship with Churchill is excellent. There were four WWII summits that were detailed and were probably the best parts of the book.

The story around FDR’s purchase and the importance of the Warm Springs spa to his life was also well done. The healing powers and pool helped FDR recover from the effects of polio and he traveled there much more than I had realized.

Brand does not dance around FDR’s affairs. FDR’s mistress Lucy was often there with him at Warm Springs including the day he died. Eleanor thought she had come to grips with his behavior but the details still angered her.

FDR’s sometimes tenuous financial situation was something new to the biographies that I’ve read and found quite interesting. FDR and Eleanor were very wealthy by the standards of the early 20th century. But they also had a large number of children who went to private academies. There was an enormous staff of servants to go with their many houses and estates in NYC, Hyde Park, Nova Scotia and recently Warm Springs Georgia. FDR held mostly government jobs in his life and Eleanor had no salary until the 1950s when she was the U.N. Representative. It was said that more than half of FDR’s life savings were spent to purchase Warm Springs in the early 1920’s. They were old money people for sure.

Now for the bad. This book did suffer from one problem. Roosevelt’s complete life can’t be thoroughly addressed in one volume. Most every topic covered in this book is interesting but most topics were too brief. There was not enough discussion about his twelve- year presidency and almost no coverage on his able cabinet.

4 stars.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of this author's books - he's written three very good and readable single volume biographies of Ben Franklin, Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson - all of whom led busy lives. In his latest work the author tackles FDR, another complicated historical figure. What makes this book work is also its flaw, although very engaging - at over 800 pages the book is actually not a tedious read - there is a glossing over or lack of detail on topics such as The New Deal, FDR's attempt to change the make-up of the Supreme Court after his re-election in 1936 and foreign policy, specifically the lead up to America's entry into World War II and the war itself. In other Roosevelt bios these topics are handled in great detail - sometimes eye-glazingly so - in Brands' book a little more detail might have helped. If you are well read in this period of U.S. history there isn't anything new here.

That being said, this book is not a bad place to start on FDR's life and times if you are a novice, although Jean Edward Smith's recent book is more informative. And if you're looking for the best of the bunch - and have the time - Conrad Black's 1000+ page tome is my book of choice. Kenneth Davis' multi-volume bio is also excellent but unfortunately the author passed away before finishing his work, i.e. FDR & World War II. This series can be supplemented by Eric Larabee's Commander in Chief - an excellent book if you can find it.

As an aside Jonathan Alter's recent book on FDR's first "100 Days", The Defining Moment, is also an excellent read.

[Sonny · Rating 5 out of 5]

― “Liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. You do not do that. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them.”
― H.W. Brands, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

A series of polls of historians and political scientists conducted since 1948 (see Historical rankings of presidents of the United States - Wikipedia) have consistently ranked Franklin Delano Roosevelt as one of the three highest-rated presidents (the other two being Abraham Lincoln and George Washington). FDR, the 32nd President of the United States, led the United States through two national crises: the Great Depression and World War II, events that fundamentally altered the course of American history.

Historian and biographer H.W. Brands has provided the reader with what may very well be the best modern general biography of Franklin Roosevelt. Published in 2008, Traitor to His Class was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. While the focus of the focus of the book is on his presidency, Brands covers FDR’s childhood, especially his relationship with his somewhat domineering mother, his marriage to the extraordinary Eleanor Roosevelt, and his time as governor of New York.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president of the United States in 1933, after Herbert Hoover. Through his first six years in office, Franklin Roosevelt spent much of his time trying to bring the United States out of the Great Depression. Believing that the Depression was temporary, arising from international circumstances, President Hoover thought that there was no need for federal government intervention in stabilizing prices, controlling business, or fixing the currency. He chose a limited response instead that did not begin to help the millions of Americans in need. President Roosevelt believed that the nation's economic problems were largely self-inflicted. He rejected Hoover's weak approach in favor of a more robust response. He asked Congress for broad executive power to meet the crisis. Although Roosevelt had campaigned on a pledge to balance the budget, his economic advisors led by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau persuaded him to boost government spending in an effort to stimulate the economy.

― “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
― H.W. Brands, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

While Roosevelt crafted the New Deal, he did not ignore America’s foreign policy. He strongly believed that the most powerful nation in the world had an important role to play in the world. FDR kept a wary eye on events unfolding in Europe and Asia during the mid-1930s. Working with British prime minister Winston Churchill, he took decisive steps to provide aid to Britain and prepare the United States for the possibility of war. Together, the two leaders crafted the “Atlantic Charter,” affirming the sense of solidarity between the U.S. and Great Britain against Axis aggression. Constrained by the Neutrality Acts and strong isolationist sentiments in America, FDR skillfully nudged the United States towards supporting Great Britain by supplying aid. He also bought the United States time to shore up its military preparedness, which at that time was inadequate for a major war. Roosevelt's leadership during this period was crucial.

Franklin Roosevelt transformed both the office of the presidency and the nation. Not even his severest critics dared attempt to roll back the changes he brought about. His election to an unprecedented four terms demonstrates his success as a leader. Known for his remarkable willingness to champion the concerns of the poor and disenfranchised, FDR possessed the critical traits of an effective leader: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability. Brand’s biography is both thoroughly readable and extremely fair in its assessment of FDR. Traitor to His Class captures the qualities that made FDR a beloved figure to millions of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans. My only complaints are that Brands gives insufficient coverage to FDR’s two terms as New York governor, his childhood, and his marriage to Eleanor. In addition, while Brands reports events, he could have spent more time analyzing and interpreting events. 4.5 stars rounded up.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brands is a character in his biographies as much as his subjects are; he isn't shy about telling you what he thinks of them. The lasting impression I got from T.R.: The Last Romantic was Brand's distaste for the earlier President Roosevelt. He casts a kindlier eye on Teddy's relative. Despite the ominous title, Brands portrays FDR as a true champion for social (especially economic) reforms, explaining in detail the machinations that led to the New Deal, the National Industrial Recovery Act, and social security. These programs are shown as political philanthropy, honest and noble progressive campaigns against the predatory market system that plagued the age. Depending on your political preferences, this will be either enjoyable or misguided; either way, Brands shows that history does indeed repeat itself. The parallels to modern-day politics are obvious, useful and fascinating.
Brands also reveals the machinations of statecraft in detail that I'd never read before, notably at Yalta. He might have made Pearl Harbor more than the footnote it was, but within the context of his narrative, his treatment of that event does illuminate, on a larger scale, the role America was to play in World War II.

Not so fascinating are the subplots. Eleanor Roosevelt, an intriguing character in her own right, is portrayed mostly in her combative relationship with FDR, and her social concerns thus feel more like tantrums than serious causes. She is relegated to a secondary role, which is understandable, but she is dismissed along the way, which is unfair. Roosevelt's childhood is likewise not sketched out beyond the bare minimum, which makes me wonder what was left unsaid.

Finally, Brands is not a great writer. He wants to share his personal perspective on historical events, but that personal touch feels out of place in his dry and utilitarian narrative. He gives all the information you could possibly want on the subject, but doesn't always manage to weave it into a compelling story. There is no sense of drama or history or moment. This was not always an enjoyable read, which is a shame, because it is always an informative one.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://bestpresidentialbios.com/2016/...

“Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt” is H.W. Brands’s 2008 biography of FDR and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Brands is a professor at the University of Texas and the author of more than two dozen books (including six presidential biographies). His most recent biography “Reagan: The Life” was published in 2015.

This lengthy single-volume biography of FDR is detailed, comprehensive and magisterial. It is organized into three major sections and its 824 pages leave no major aspect of Roosevelt’s life unexplored – but it focuses on the various phases of his life with different levels of intensity.

Coverage of Roosevelt’s early years and pre-presidency is solid (but not exceptional) and Brands provides more background on FDR’s retreat at Warm Springs than I’ve encountered elsewhere. His two-term gubernatorial career, however, is surprisingly under-covered. Discussion of President Roosevelt’s domestic agenda (with the New Deal as its key component) is clear, thorough and well-balanced.

One of Brands’s most conspicuous talents is his ability to not only describe the individual events in his subject’s life but also to provide robust historical context for his narrative. Important moments – particularly during FDR’s presidency – are not just described, they are explained. As a consequence, readers lacking a thorough background in Roosevelt’s era rarely feel out of touch with the landscape in which he operated.

The most successful aspect of the biography is its three-hundred page coverage of Roosevelt’s service as a wartime president. Brands’s review of these years – from his commentary relating to the events which sparked World War II through his captivating review of the Yalta Conference – is excellent. The biography ends on a strong note with an outstanding chapter reviewing Roosevelt’s legacy and his impact on American (and world) history.

But for all the detail Brands provides in this weighty tome, relatively little effort is expended covering Roosevelt’s family and “friends.” His mother, who by many accounts was doting and highly supportive of Franklin, is treated relatively harshly. Eleanor – compelling in her own right – appears only sporadically and seems to frustrate (rather than enhance) the narrative. And the roles of Lucy Mercer, Missy LeHand and FDR’s children are surprisingly under-weighted.

Readers familiar with Brands’s other biographies will recognize his writing style – it is a straightforward, fact-focused and occasionally dry style which lacks the fluidity and color of other world-class biographers. More disappointing is that Brands reports events far more diligently than he analyzes or interprets them. It is usually the reader’s responsibility to decipher events or to consider Roosevelt’s evolution as a husband, father and politician.

Overall, H.W. Brands’s “Traitor to His Class” is a detailed, comprehensive and meritorious single-volume biography of a compelling and highly-regarded president. While providing little new insight into an already exhaustively-reviewed figure, this biography provides readers with a solid introduction to FDR’s life with a particular strength in its coverage of his political career.

Overall rating: 4¼ stars

[Greg Bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an adequate history of the FDR administration. As a biography, it is less so. I came away from it without a sense that I know FDR significantly better than I already did. The chapters covering his early life are helpful, but as FDR ascends to the presidency, Brands seems to allow the rush of events--the Depression, the Second World War--to become his focus. We're told what FDR did, but as a general rule, not why he did it. Brands rarely steps back to analyze what inner convictions drove Roosevelt to take a particular course.

In fact, I would say that Brands does not do an adequate job of defending the provocative title of this book. I'm skeptical that simply because Roosevelt, a child of privilege, expanded the federal social-welfare apparatus in such an enormous way makes him a "traitor" to his class, but Brands seems to think the point is self-evident and never defends it.

In Brands' defense, it seems FDR was not a prolific letter writer, and he was not really close to anyone. Getting at the man behind the image would not be a simple task for any historian.

One interesting feature of the book is Brands' frequent quotations from official transcripts of White House press conferences. FDR's interactions with the press were quite interesting, but of course he was often misleading, so while I can admire his political skills, I am still left wondering what convictions drove his policies.

[Marshall Smiland · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing book about an amazing man. He led the US through the darkest days of its history and gave the ordinary people a hope which they may not have had without his reassuring voice. As usual, Brands does a terrific job with his biography and in this case gives us a fascinating view of a man who, although afflicted by polio, changed his country and the world forever.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this was a good one. I'd say, like, 4.6 or 4.7 stars. Don't judge it by how long it took me to get through it -- I had a very strange month and multiple weekends of travel and didn't read a page for days at a time three different times. When I did read, I was fascinated by FDR's life, impressed by his leadership, alarmed by his (for lack of a better word) manipulation, and so intrigued by how it all went down. I learned new things about Eleanor, about Stalin, about the war effort, about the Cabinets and VPs, about the New Deal... It was a very informative 800-page adventure.

I started out reading with the bad FDR taste left in my mouth from the Hoover bio; the two were so decidedly different, and I really thought FDR treated him poorly, from the Hoover perspective. But basically, the new administration just had no use for the old ways, and while I didn't come around to saying FDR acted well and nobly toward Hoover, I just think he didn't give him the time of day. It's interesting -- Hoover was so rugged-individualistically self-made rich, and FDR was so born-into-wealth, and look how differently their political lives/theories ended up. (That said: Hoover is misunderstood, and I think he meant well - a lot better than some current politicians! But this is about FDR...) And no matter how poorly FDR might have treated Eleanor/marriage, or how cunning he was with everyone around him, or how deceptive he could be, he was, bottom line, a leader. He straight-up led the country through the New Deal, the recovery, the 1930s, and then the war. It's almost mind-boggling all that he did and everyone he met and interacted with, all while carrying the weight of his leg braces or supporting his body weight at podiums or otherwise dealing with his physical problems but never letting them see him sweat! It becomes, sadly, not really mind-boggling at all that the job killed him, in the end.

It's hard for me to support military "triumphs" because I'm so disgusted by the fact that the world uses war to confront problems, but I couldn't help but respect FDR, Churchill, and Stalin and all that they did to deal with the menace of Hitler. I came away from this book wanting to read more about both Churchill and Stalin. They're so famous, but the glimpses of them in this book intrigue me and make me want to know more about the little things, the personal touches.

Definitely recommended. Worth the time commitment. A great dose of history.

[Amy Moritz · Rating 4 out of 5]

What drew me to this book was the title, "Traitor to His Class." I had just finished reading a book of letters from The Great Depression and was fascinated about class in America in that era and the double-edge sword of pride which kept people from seeking the help they needed until it was too late. With no knowledge other than the fact my dad liked the book, I borrowed it from him, excited to learn about how a man of privilege became a radical voice for poor and labor.

Here's the thing -- I don't feel like I got a lot of that in this book. At least not in the depth I was anticipating. FDR's polio certainly impacted his sense of inclusion in American life and his time spent at Warm Springs in Georgia gave him a first-hand look at the way so many Americans lived hand to mouth. But that was about it.

However, this still was an excellent overall biography of FDR giving an overview of his desire to be president, his political tactics and his use of office through domestic and international crises. He seemed to make few bold moves without the overall support of the American public (see: modern day polling data) but the author frames it as FDR's deep respect and desire for democracy -- although Roosevelt did try to guide the American people to his point of view.

So while I was hoping for more discussion of wealth and class status in America in the 1930-40s than for discussion of the Yalta Conference, I learned a lot and enjoyed the book.

[Kyle Suratte · Rating 5 out of 5]

“‘I began almost as soon as we got into the conference room,’ FDR told [U.S. Secretary of Labor] Frances Perkins. ‘I said, lifting my hand to cover a whisper (which of course had to be interpreted), Winston is cranky this morning, he got up on the wrong side of the bed. A vague smile passed over Stalin’s eyes, and I decided I was on the right track…I began to tease Churchill about his Britishness, about John Bull, about his cigars, about his habits. It began to register with Stalin. Winston got red and scowled, and the more he did so, the more Stalin smiled. Finally Stalin broke out in a deep, hearty guffaw, and for the first time in three days I saw light. I kept it up until Stalin was laughing with me, and it was then that I called him Uncle Joe."

[Edward]

Long comment on the book and some of its preliminary outlines here, from Ron Unz’s long new piece on FDR at Unz.com:

“I’d been very favorably impressed with the Brands book, and noticed that the same author had previously published a lengthy 2008 biography of FDR that had been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, so Traitor to His Class, a doorstop-sized work running around 900 pages seemed like a good starting point for my investigation.

From the beginning, Brands emphasized Roosevelt’s very wealthy and elite family background. The future president was a descendent of the early Dutch settlers who had founded New York, and he followed that family tradition by being educated at Groton and Harvard College. FDR seems to have been a mediocre student with few if any intellectual interests, and years later he always described his failure to be admitted to Harvard’s elite Porcellian social club as the greatest disappointment of his entire life. By all accounts, Roosevelt almost never read any books, with the sole exception being dime detective stories. I’d sometimes come across these sorts of striking anecdotes about FDR in my casual readings, but having them explicitly stated in such a weighty and widely-praised biography fully confirmed their credibility.

After college, FDR enrolled at Columbia Law School, though he found legal studies rather uninteresting, received mediocre grades, and dropped out before graduating. By contrast, he was a very active and enthusiastic member of the New York City Yacht Club, so despite his lack of a law degree, a yachting friend of his soon offered him an unpaid apprenticeship at one of America’s most prestigious law firms. Roosevelt found practical legal work just as dull as he had his law school classes, but the couple of years or so he spent in that position, half of that time working without salary, seems to have been the only real job he ever held in his entire life.

During that period, Roosevelt was already telling his friends that he intended to make politics his career and hoped to reach the presidency, something that struck me as an astonishingly bold goal for someone then in his late 20s with such unimpressive personal achievements. But his very successful subsequent political career owed much to a crucial factor that I had entirely failed to grasp.

When I first began reading candid accounts of FDR’s background and his personal characteristics, the historical analogy that immediately came to my mind was that of President George W. Bush, but I’d failed to fully appreciate just how closely the two cases matched. As most people know, Bush’s very successful career in Republican Party politics was almost entirely due to the famous name of his father, President George H.W. Bush, with many ignorant voters notoriously getting the two men confused. I think it’s widely acknowledged that if Bush’s last name or even his first name had been something different, it’s unlikely that he would have ever been elected to anything at all.

Similarly, I’d always found it an odd coincidence that America had had two presidents with the rather unusual name Roosevelt just a couple of decades apart, but until reading the Brands book I’d failed to understand that much more than mere coincidence was involved.

As the author emphasized, the two terms in office of President Theodore Roosevelt, followed by his extremely active and high-profile post-presidential career had made TR the foremost public figure of his era, also establishing “Roosevelt” as the most famous political name in America, perhaps even in the entire world. FDR came from an entirely different branch of that family, being only a fifth cousin of his important relative, although his wife Eleanor was actually TR’s niece. But FDR’s very famous last name was still regularly regarded as a major political asset, with Democratic Party leaders always glad to put up a Roosevelt of their own and capitalize on the huge fame of the progressive Republican of the same surname.

So when the Democrats of Dutchess County in Upstate New York heard that FDR might be interested in running for office, they eagerly recruited him even though he’d spent the last few years living in New York City. His district was a heavily Republican one and Roosevelt was wealthy enough to fund his own race, so he seemed like the ideal candidate. FDR was handsome and charming and he campaigned in an expensive and gaudy red automobile at a time when horse-and-buggies were still the main means of transportation, so as he drove around his rural district, his unusual vehicle often attracted as much attention as the candidate who rode inside it. The year 1910 happened to be a very good one for Democrats, so Roosevelt won an upset victory by 1,440 votes, entering the New York State Legislature, while his fellow Democrats gained control of both houses.

The election of a Democratic Roosevelt was considered a major political novelty, especially since most people incorrectly assumed that he was actually a close relative of the recent Republican president. The New York Times soon published a lengthy profile on the freshman lawmaker, with the feature writer even declaring that “His patronymic had gone before him.”

Back then, the notorious Tammany Hall Democratic political machine ran New York City, with the state’s Democrats being sharply divided into pro- and anti-Tammany factions. FDR became a leading figure in the latter camp, probably inspired by a mixture of TR’s progressive views and his own shrewd political instincts on how to make a quick name for himself.”

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

For figure like Roosevelt and the demanding times in which he lived, to use a word like magisterial to describe him or this book would be almost cliché. But, true to form, H.W. Brands gives tangibility to both his subject and his subject's times. In a work of this length, not a word is wasted. He has to lecturer's feel for delving into anecdote and offering connecting explanation.

[Scott Pomfret · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid biography of FDR, though the title doesn't really fit the content. Of course, it documents the privileged life and of course it details the New Deal and related efforts, but it does not make much, if anything, of his being considered a class traitor. The topic is barely broached at all.

Where Brands succeeds is in delivering a relatively sympathetic of FDR that nonetheless pulls no punches on his considerable faults. FDR's political savvy and ambition are the main themes here. At no time does Brands portray him as an idealist, but rather a man of confidence scheming and sometimes lying to achieve what he believes to be the right result.

Eleanor Roosevelt gets extended air time here and the portrait is overwhelmingly sympathetic and admiring (and touching in many places). Churchill and Stalin are examined at length and both come off as flawed but in their own ways brilliant.

[Tami R Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brand's Traitor to His Class is a highly fact-filled read on the political life of FDR. While the title suggests a more analytical approach, it is in fact a highly narrative one. Brand focuses a great deal on FDR during the New Deal period and less so on the WW2 period. Clearly this period was the one in which FDR was considered a "traitor" to his upper class roots but as Brand correctly shows, once the war began, FDR turned away from labor and towards big business. While this switch from "Dr. New Deal" towards "Dr. Win the War" was certainly an important part of FDR's approach, it seems evident that he was getting ready to turn once again towards the working class and the poor with his "Second Bill of Rights" proposals near the end of both his life and WW2.

As with most biographies of FDR, he comes across as a brilliant politician who was able to navigate a wide variety of interests with a contradictory combination of charm and brutal political shrewdness. FDR was an idealist only to a degree, using the Constitution when it suited him and discarding it when it did not - as evidenced in both the attempted packing of the Supreme Court and the later internment of Japanese Americans. He had a way of maintaining a balance between different individuals to allow the best outcome to come forth. While this way of working often drove his contemporary subordinates to distraction in domestic affairs, the book highlights this trait as an indispensable asset on the international stage. It is clear that a man with a different political style could have had a negative impact on international relations for years to come. As it was, and in spite of the Cold War, one finishes reading Brand's work being grateful to have had a person with FDR's temperament leading the United States during such a tumultuous and unpredictable time, despite his numerous contradictions and faults.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started off reading this book then switched to the listening to the CD version on a trip to Idaho. My husband and I really got hooked on it. Mark Deakins is a skilled reader who did an excellent job of holding our interest on a book that lasts for 37 hours and 11 minutes. Listening to Deakins read is better than simply reading the book. After I'd heard a few hours, I never went back to the physical book.

FDR was a really remarkable man who was a lot more complex than I understood. Where to even begin? On a personal note, I learned the truth of family story in this book. I had been told that my great-great uncle almost became Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. He had been chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court when James Cox was governor. Supposedly James Cox would have appointed him if only he had won his presidential race. What was never mentioned is that the Harding/Coolidge ticket absolutely trounced the Cox/Roosevelt ticket. The Democrats never had a chance in that election. Brands starts with Roosevelt's childhood and the influence of his mother and proceeds to tell a sprawling story. Roosevelt was a master at influencing public opinion and changed the course of the United States in many ways that still greatly affect our lives today. Though long, the book is well worth reading. Even better, digest it by listening to it over the course of a couple months. (It is not a new book so I was able to renew my library copy several times. You probably can too.)

[Jee Koh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written with a full appreciation of Roosevelt's accomplishments and a frank understanding of his flaws, Traitor to His Class is an engrossing read. The chief burden of the book is to explain how a man of Roosevelt's class and privilege could have become so firm a supporter of ordinary men and women, and so visionary an architect of American internationalism. Part I "Swimming to Health 1882 - 1928" covers the early period, right up to his becoming the Governor of New York. Part II "The Soul of the Nation 1929 - 1937" traces his path to the Presidency and the implementation of New Deal as a response to the Great Depression. The final part "The Fate of the World 1937 - 1945" examines America's entry into WWII and FDR's record as Commander-in-Chief. I was intrigued to learn that, in a moment of carelessness, FDR promised Winston Churchill to send American troops to defend Singapore. The Atlantic Charter was an important document supporting self-rule among the colonies. It explained why newly decolonized nations looked to American instead of the old imperialistic powers of Europe. The only child of an adoring mother, FDR was filled with a sense of his greatness from young. He died, praised by Churchill as "the greatest man" he had ever known.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly exceptional book. Eleanor and Franklin were two people who history placed at the right time and place. It is very sad that their marriage which started out based on love ended in sadness of both misunderstanding and acrimony. Despite the people who think theirs was a marriage of convenience for political reasons it was not. I think it failed because a/ FDR's mother interfered constantly b/Eleanor had a very unhappy and loveless childhood which FDR could not or would not deal with and try to
recognize her insecurity. and c/ he was handsome, rich and very clever and thus attracted all women including those he had affairs with. His wit, courage and
smarts guided the USA through the Great Depression and the second World War. She was the perfect help meet for him. The truly frightening part is that the same conditions were in place prior to 2008 and what has happened since only mirrors the Great Depression. The only difference is there are more social programs in place to help people than there were in 1932. Same excuses from the same parties. That part is very disheartening. What would our world be like today if FDR lived long enough to help shape it?

[Dan Wilbur · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up because I wanted to live, for a time, in a fantasy world where a progressive President was in the White House and the American military had moral authority. What I found was that FDR dragged his feet more often than you’d think on matter of social justice, labor, America’s involvement in stopping the Axis powers. An incredibly detailed account of the political climate in the US and personal life of FDR while he made big decisions. Did you know one of the reasons he headed the navy in WWI was simply because he’d been piloting yachts since he was a baby? Did you know his daughter set up trysts with old lovers while he was managing a war? Did you know that Senators weren’t directly elected until the 17th amendment? Should I have paid more attention in school? Yes. But even if you did, there’s new info in this book.

Lastly, this book is for you if you want to read 100 pages of Churchill and FDR falling in love platonically but then when it gets to storming the beaches at Normandy, there’s a single paragraph about the effort. A great read.

[Dan Pepper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I'm being a facile idiot but my disappointment here is that it really doesn't engage with Roosevelt and his class or especially what they thought of him. It's just a standard issue biography of FDR, which was fine and I learned some stuff but it's like how the black album is good as an album but maybe not as a Metallica album.

The book's contention that Roosevelt was not much of an ideologue is very interesting and the idea in various places that he basically never confided in anyone so it makes it hard to know what to think of him. In some ways maybe he was politics personified in that he was willing to be what he had to be in order to be elected president.

Maybe I'm being too harsh here but I'm not sure why you'd read this Roosevelt biography if it doesn't focus on class like the title promises.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a straight-forward biography of Franklin Roosevelt. I liked it because it stuck mostly to chronological reporting and only occasionally went "out of order" to pick up an important theme. Brands is really good at this kind of writing. I look forward to reading his works on B. Franklin & A. Jackson.

As I was reading this I began to watch "The Waltons" (first season DVD). It was interesting to see the impact of FDR on these people, from his picture in the homes to the "blue eagle" in the general store. FDR may have been a traitor to the blue-blooded Knickerbockers, but he was a savior to the rest of America.

[Susan Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're looking for a book that sets FDR as a patrician born and bred in the context of his efforts to deal with the devastation of the Depression on the lower and middle class, this is the book to read. Often charged with being a socialist, "[FDR] believed in democracy--in the capacity of ordinary Americans, exercising their collective judgment, to address the ills that afflicted their society. He refused to rely on the invisible hand of the marketplace, for the compelling reason that during his lifetime the invisible hand had wreaked very visible havoc on millions of unoffending Americans."

[Stephen Tryon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish all Americans of voting age would read this book. Brands' biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is excellent on many levels: as a biography of one of our greatest presidents (FDR ranks among the top three in many rankings of our presidents), as a fascinating portrait of the very human interactions among national leaders during one of the most challenging periods in our history, and as an additional perspective on some major events in American history. Brands' use of primary sources includes comments from FDR's children and from others who interacted with him at pivotal moments. FDR's relationships with his wife Eleanor, his close associates in his political career, and with world leaders like Churchill and Stalin are illuminating. In particular, his personal views of and interactions with Douglas MacArthur foreshadow the trouble Truman had with MacArthur. I came away with a different perspective on someone whose character I had accepted uncritically based on what I was taught at West Point. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Brands' biography of FDR paints a clear picture of the causes and effects of the Great Depression, the New Deal, the Second World War, the advent of Social Security, and the birth of the United Nations.

Part of Roosevelt's brilliance as a president lay in his compassion for the common people in America, who were suffering greatly when FDR was inaugurated. Many of his personal associates felt that the polio, which temporarily made Roosevelt a paraplegic and permanently robbed him of the full use of his legs, was a pivotal event that increased his empathy for others. It certainly caused him to spend a great deal of time in rural Georgia, where he became directly acquainted with the vast disparities in economic resources and potential in different parts of America.

One of Roosevelt's greatest achievements was in seeing the connections between what he observed during the First World War, the actions of the governments of other nations (as well as those of the three branches of the government of the United States), and the path he felt was necessary to avoid future world wars. When he, along with Churchill, proposed the Atlantic Charter, he was really projecting into the international arena the goals he had set for American society to get out of Depression. The Four Freedoms that served as a shorthand for the Charter were freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

As a veteran, I am particularly grateful that FDR was the father of the GI Bill of Rights. Having seen the suffering of WWI veterans at the onset of the depression (including the Bonus March on Washington and Hoover's use of the army to remove some of the veterans by force), FDR proposed a comprehensive plan to prevent a recurrence of this tragedy. "First on his list was a mustering-out bonus large enough to cover living expenses for a reasonable period between discharge from the military and the assuming of civilian jobs. Second, unemployment insurance for those unable to find jobs. Third, government funding for further education. Fourth, credit with Social Security for the time spent in the military. Fifth, medical care and rehabilitation for those injured in the service. Sixth, pensions for disabled veterans." (Brands, p. 722)

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Franklin Roosevelt is my favorite American President. With all the depressing news lately, I wanted to read about a time when the seemingly political impossible was made possible. Something that could give me a glimpse of political hope. So I finally picked up this FDR biography.

FDR grew up in wealth and privilege. He traveled the world with his parents as a child and fell in love with sailing boats. His father died when he was young and he was a mama’s boy, with a very overbearing mother. He attended Harvard and Columbia Universities and became an attorney in 1908.

Eleanor was Teddy Roosevelt’s niece. Her father was an alcoholic who abandoned the family and died young, as did her mother. Eleanor was raised by her grandparents who didn’t show love for her and she was also likely sexually abused by her uncles. After she married Franklin, in 1905, their early marriage was dominated by Franklin’s mother.

FDR considered his cousin/uncle, Teddy Roosevelt, a role model, though they weren’t personally close. FDR won election in 1910 to the New York state senate and revealed himself a progressive when he immediately picked a fight, over the selection of a Senator in 1911, and won against the corrupt Democratic political machine of Tammany Hall. He then backed Woodrow Wilson in the primary and general election of 1912. FDR won reelection to that state senate with the help of his committed advisor, Louis Howe, despite being sick with typhoid. He was then quickly appointed Assistant Navy Secretary in Wilson’s Administration, where he learned to work with unions representing shipyard workers and advocated for their higher pay. FDR ran for Senate in 1914, but lost in the primary.

Franklin and Eleanor’s relationship began to fracture and Franklin had an extended affair with Eleanor’s assistant, Lucy Mercer, which Eleanor learned about in 1918. Franklin would renew his affair with Mercer years later as President and in between he likely had an extended affair with his own assistant and defacto Chief of Staff, Missy LeHand.

FDR was learning as he watched Wilson try to keep the U.S. out of WWI, but ultimately felt forced to join the war when Germany started indiscriminately sinking U.S. ships. He also learned as he watched Wilson wait until public support for war built before declaring war. FDR traveled to the front and planned to resign his position in the Wilson administration in order to enlist to fight, but the war ended before he could. FDR’s experience during WWI was probably the greatest influence on his perspective during his Presidency, including how he handled the Great Depression and conducted the Second World War.

Roosevelt eventually established a truce with Tammany Hall and was selected as the Democrats’ Vice Presidential candidate in the 1920 election. The Democrats had no chance in the election due to the unpopularity of Wilson’s League of Nations proposal and the economic turmoil that followed the end of the war. Republicans swept the election in a landslide.

FDR contracted polio in 1921 and became paralyzed. He began spending time at a resort in Warm Springs, Georgia, for the seemingly therapeutic waters. Roosevelt eventually bought the resort, expanded it and turned it into a camp for polio victims that was run by a charitable organization he created. During his time in Georgia he witnessed southern poverty and, together with his overall experience with his disability and working with polio victims, his time in Georgia greatly impacted his perspective.

During the 1920s, Eleanor, originally very shy and lacking confidence, got involved with Democratic women’s groups where she met a lesbian couple who radicalized her politics. Eleanor later had a romantic relationship with journalist Lorena Hickock and began to develop her own political agenda separate from Franklins. As First Lady, she actively lobbied Franklin on her political priorities.

FDR was campaign manager for Al Smith in the 1924 Presidential primary election and, while Smith narrowly lost the Democratic nomination, Roosevelt was the star of the national convention. The convention was marked by chaos and battles over whether to condemn the KKK and positions on prohibition. FDR then backed Smith again for the 1928 election in which Smith was the Democratic nominee. Smith lost, but FDR reluctantly had agreed to run for Governor of New York and won despite it being a strong year for Republicans nationwide.

As Governor, FDR became a master of the new medium of radio, but Republicans in the state legislature blocked his every effort for progressive reform. FDR knew the strong economy of the 1920s wouldn’t last, so he positioned himself to be the voice of the people when the bottom fell out of the economy, which it of course did with the crash of 1929, plunging the world into the devastating Great Depression.

FDR ran for reelection as Governor in 1930 and won in a landslide. He focused his energy on implementing social relief programs and then ran for President in 1932, promising a more activist government. Once again, he won in a landslide.

Interestingly, after watching Douglas McArthur crack down on veterans protesting outside the White House during Hoover’s Presidency, FDR concluded that McArthur was the most dangerous man in America. FDR felt McArthur was capable of leading a military coup if the Depression got bad enough and that he was willing to establish an authoritarian government with himself (McArthur) at the head.

In February, 1933, while FDR was President-elect, there was an assassination attempt on his life in Miami by a mentally unstable Italian immigrant.

As President, FDR’s first move was to take the U.S. off the gold standard and to stabilize the nation’s banks. He held his first “fireside chat” over the radio to explain his policies to the nation. FDR was also open to the press in a way no prior President had been.

FDR’s next move as President was to address over production and low prices in the ag industry by paying farmers to pull acreage out of farm production. He also created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in order to employ men and improve our public lands. He created the Tennessee Valley Authority and passed the Public Work Administration to create jobs and improve the nation’s infrastructure. From his experience observing successful economic planning during WWI, FDR passed legislation authorizing national economic planning through the National Recovery Administration (NRA). All told, it was the most successful first one hundred days in Presidential history.

Much more radical figures and proposals were being advocated for in the early 1930s, including socialists, Huey Long (later assassinated), Father Coughlin, Francis Townsend, Upton Sinclair and the Longshoremen union. These people and proposals made FDR’s policies look tame in comparison and also pushed FDR to pass Social Security, unemployment insurance, and disability benefits in 1934.

Also in 1934, the Supreme Court ruled against the National Recovery Administration (doing the national economic planning). In 1936, FDR proposed expanding the court to undermine the conservative majority on the court, but this move was widely unpopular and never went anywhere. The threat, however, forced the court to temper its opposition to FDR’s policies and FDR achieved a liberal court over time through regular appointments.

Early in his Presidency, FDR scuttled an international economic deal that would have tied his hands in dealing with the Depression and later he officially recognized the Soviet Union in order to boost American exports. He also lost a vote in Congress for the U.S. to join the World Court.

In 1936, FDR campaigned for reelection by attacking the rich and won in the biggest landslide in American history (losing only Vermont and Maine), but his friend and key political strategist, Louis Howe, died in April before the election.

Of particular note about FDR’s personality, everyone remarked of his cheery, easy-going and playful nature, even during the most stressful moments of his Presidency. He was also surprisingly very religious, though he was quiet about his religiousness.

In 1937, New Deal spending was declining in response to pressure from big business, which was interested in hurting the New Deal’s reputation. A major recession took hold in response and FDR was forced to decide whether to continue to cut spending and balance the budget as big business was pushing for, or listen to a new group of young economists who were urging government spending as a way to boost the economy when private capital failed. FDR, after some indecision, decided to push for increased government spending in 1938.

Also in 1938, FDR passed legislation banning child labor, establishing a very weak minimum wage, and establishing a forty-hour work week that had lots of loopholes. Then Congress passed tax breaks for the rich against FDR’s wishes and conservatives made gains in the 1938 elections, emboldening them.

The strength of isolationists in Congress tied FDR’s hands in responding to the international crises instigated by Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, Hitler in Germany and Japan. Following the outbreak of WWII, however, FDR campaigned successfully for the repeal of an arms embargo established in the Neutrality Acts.

Eleanor, by this time, had her own fully developed political perspective and constituency. She published an influential newspaper column and traveled around the country in support of her causes. She pushed FDR for an anti-lynching law, but FDR didn’t want to risk losing the support for his New Deal policies from southern Democrats.

FDR didn’t indicate that he wanted to run for a third term until the Democratic convention and nearly caused a revolt when he insisted that liberal Henry Wallace be his running mate. Republicans accused FDR of wanting to be a dictator for running for a third term and trying to pack the Supreme Court, but FDR won reelection anyway in 1940.

In early 1941, FDR passed the Lend-Lease program which provided weapons to Britain. In August, he met for the first time with Churchill in Greenland where they agreed to the Atlantic Charter which outlined the post-war world order, including the end of colonialism. After Japan invaded Indochina, FDR put the U.S. on a war footing, passed legislation authorizing the first mandatory registration for the draft in peacetime, froze Japanese assets in the U.S. and put an embargo on oil and gas exports to Japan. That September, he declared that the U.S. would attack German vessels in the Atlantic.

FDR felt war in Europe and Asia was inevitable, but still treaded carefully because of the isolationists in Congress. FDR wanted to hold off war in Asia long enough to focus on Europe, but in November, 1941, he learned that Japan planned to attack due to the economic embargo. But the assumption was that any Japanese attack would be in the U.S. held Philippines or British Southeast Asia and the U.S. was surprised by the attack on Pearl Harbor a few weeks later. The U.S. declared war on Japan and Germany declared war on the U.S. five days later.

In early 1942, FDR issued the order allowing for the internment of Japanese-Americans over fears they could aid in a Japanese invasion of the west coast. Easily his worst and most shameful decision.

There was a big debate in 1942 between FDR, Churchill and Stalin over where the U.S. should open a second front, with Stalin and initially FDR wanting a quick invasion of France and Churchill wanting a North Africa defense to prevent the Nazis from taking the Suez Canal. If the Nazis took the Suez Canal, they could block Britain’s access to its Indian colony which was at the time at risk of a Japanese invasion. Churchill eventually won the debate with FDR. The issue arose again with question of whether to invade France or Italy first and Churchill again convinced FDR to delay the invasion of France.

The war economy in the U.S. caused an inflationary spike in 1942, causing FDR to pass price controls and taxes at near 90% for the highest incomes.

With China as an ally in the war against Japan, FDR repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act of the 1880s, which Japan was using as an example to show that U.S. calls for freedom in the Atlantic Charter were a sham. In the face of large protests by black workers, FDR ordered the desegregation of defense contractors but he refused to desegregate the military fearing once again that he would lose support of southern Democrats in Congress.

In 1944, FDR announced his intention to establish an economic bill of rights following the war, but he also refused to allow labor strikes during the war.

When FDR ran for reelection in 1944, he chose not to run again with Henry Wallace both because of conservative opposition and because he felt Wallace had become too extreme. The Democratic Party instead selected Harry Truman over the more liberal William Douglas to be FDR’s running mate. FDR campaigned on setting up the post-war United Nations and won reelection easily, despite the nation’s rejection of the League of Nations twenty-five years earlier.

At the 1945 conference in Yalta; FDR, Churchill and Stalin agreed on the structure of the United Nations and the division of Germany. FDR also got Stalin to agree to elections in Poland and to enter the war against Japan.

FDR died of a stroke in April, 1945, just a month before the Nazis surrendered. Eleanor lived until 1962. She served as American delegate to the United Nations and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

FDR is among the top three greatest Presidents in U.S. history. Though he clearly had serious and tragic short comings on issues of race and human rights. He is one of the few Presidents, together with his cousin Teddy, who really stood up to powerful economic interests on behalf of average Americans. He showed us that the federal government is capable of addressing the nation’s, and the world’s, greatest challenges if there is political will to do so. Hopefully, one day soon, we will learn that lesson again.

[Gea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although long and tedious it was worth the read. We spent a day in Warm Springs, GA and toured FDR's summer home and thus began the journey to know the man. The author H.W. Brands makes following the life of FDR difficult because he flips back and forth in his writing so you have trouble keeping dates straight along with the many conversations (I wonder if they were really as he wrote them). However, after being the only President to sit for four consecutive terms I came away with a greater appreciation for his wisdom and discernment regarding the world as it happened on his watch. He believed and held strongly to the freedoms men should have to live as they want, where they want and how they want. He refused to budge when at a meeting with Stalin he entered freedom of religion and Stalin wanted it deleted. Roosevelt held strong and Stalin caved. It was because of FDR that Hitler and Tojo were finally extinguished as notorious murderers and freedom was given back to Germany and Japan. The price was high and we all as Americans paid it in lives and cash but in the end it was worth it. One thing I learned about Roosevelt was his extreme patience and his overwhelming amount of historical information he carried in his head. A second thing was his love for America and the people of America. He was elected at the time of the worst depression American faced and he rallied the nation to get to work and envisioned the CCC as a way to do that. The next time you are in a national park, look at the work done by the men of that vision. The second was the introduction of the Social Security system and the third was the valor he exhibited under extreme physical duress as he experienced polio and very high blood pressure (this eventually led to his death when he had a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945.) I wonder what he would think looking at America today? Truman took the helm and the rest is history.
The life of FDR was not what I had envisioned yet I feel the author presented him as he was after doing a great deal of research. Interestingly the plaques in Warm Springs museum on FDR came directly from this book it seemed.
If you can follow the sequence and flashbacks it would be a good read but it is overly long and the type is small. I am glad I finished it as tomorrow is D-Day and it was a fitting ending to this read.

[David Baer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good, straightforward linear narrative of FDR’s life. Doesn’t linger too long on boring but inevitable stuff like the life of his parents. Just enough. Other books tend to rush through to the WWII years. This book doesn’t do that. Not only do you get plenty of blow-by-blow about his first term, where the New Deal programs were crafted and muddled through, but you by that point in the book have also got blow-by-blow descriptions of his New York governorship. As secretary of the navy, he drove the ceremonial first rivet into the keel of… wait for it… the USS Arizona!

Among the many startling things that popped out of the long narrative: how the New Deal had basically failed in its overall aim of ending the depression. The economy was going OK, but then in 1937 the key indicators took a sharp lurch in the wrong direction. The author claims, on the basis of inference, that FDR eschewed retirement partly because of this failure.

FDR famously proclaimed his willingness to experiment with government policy. “Above all, do something.” In retrospect, it seems it was really WWII that made the American economy surge, and changed everything. Prior to WWII, the administration tried to put people to work with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). This was a success as far as it went, but it wasn’t nearly enough to turn the whole economy around, nor was it intended to. More ambitious was the National Industrial Recovery Act and the agency it created, the National Recovery Administration (NRA). It was a scheme whereby government “worked with” industry to establish codes of fair competition, aimed at establishing minimum wages, maximum work hours, and production standards. It also aimed to set minimum prices at which products could be sold: a shocking concept, but understandable given that deflation of prices was a defining problem of the depression.

The book makes an interesting assertion about this, the 1930s, being a time when the economy was shifting from one of “scarcity” to one of “consumption.” In other words, the basic industrial problem had always been to produce adequately. Whatever could be produced, would be sold. With ever-more efficient production, we came to a point where there was too much industrial capacity, especially as compared with people’s ability to buy products. This led to “cutthroat” competition and downward price spiral.

John Maynard Keynes was quite interested in what FDR was trying to do, but thought he didn’t quite have it right: Brands quotes some letters sent by Keynes, in which he gently encouraged more emphasis on getting money into the hands of the people. At the time, Keynes was just some British professor, and his advice had little impact. (Today, a Republican Congress thought nothing of tossing out a trillion dollars of Covid stimulus money.)

The war years comprise almost half the book, of course, and the story is familiar, although with a book of this length one gets a great deal more direct quotes of FDR’s warnings and exhortations to Congress: you see in detail what he was dealing with, politically. Whereas some narratives have Churchill begging a sympathetic but dilletante FDR for a few meager resources, this book shows FDR going out on a political limb for what he could get, and fighting a long battle for military preparedness in a context where Fascist propaganda was in full bloom, rhetorically promising that FDR would “plow every fourth American boy under the ground” (that is, in war).

It wasn’t just FDR, but FDR plus the war, that gave us a politically irreversible Social Security program. He was also thinking about how to ensure that demobilized soldiers would have jobs, homes, and the possibility of advancement – even in the depths of the war, when few others were bothered about such things. He uttered some truly radical words: reminding Congress and the radio public of the causes of the war Roosevelt declared

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry, and out of a job, are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” Asserting that this political and economic truth was self-evident, Roosevelt proclaimed a second Bill of Rights, under which “a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all, regardless of station, race, or creed.” These rights included the right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries, or shops, or farms, or mines of the nation; the right to earn enough to provide adequate food in clothing and recreation; the right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition or domination by monopolies at home or abroad; the right of every family to a decent home; the right to adequate medical care, and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; the right to a good education.”

FDR had a lifelong affair with Lucy Mercer. This is well known, and its effect on FDR’s relationship with Eleanor is described thoroughly. To summarize, they agreed to stay married out of consideration for FDR’s career and the (six!) children, not to minimize their continuing positive feelings stemming from past shared experiences. What I found startling was Eleanor’s subsequent, and, judging by the letters written between them, frankly romantic attachment to Lorena Hickok, with whom she travelled and vacationed. Brands quotes letters that leave a quite unambiguous impression about the nature of the relationship. They were written at a time when Eleanor was struggling to come to terms with the reality of being First Lady – that is, no escape from public scrutiny at any time. Brand quotes the letters and leaves it at that, but it’s an aspect of the Eleanor story that is new to me and, I think, rarely elaborated.

It was sad to see FDR decline in health and die in office. Brands makes the case that his death at that time, however untimely, cemented his legacy at its pinnacle. After all, he promised free elections in Poland, as well as decolonization of Indochina and India. Had he lived into the postwar years, there would have been perhaps inevitable realpolitik climb-downs that could have totally changed his political legacy. He may have put too much faith in the power of his personal relationship with Stalin, and it is unknowable how the Cold War might have evolved with him present. Inevitably, he would have emerged as something other than the political superman that he was at the time of his death.

[Irving Koppel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly researched and annotated work by a very literate author,H.W.Brands'"Traitor to His Class" will join the pantheon of other
great works written about our thirty-second president.Brands traces the
growth of a wealthy,pampered,aristocratic only son,almost suffocated by
his overprotective mother,from a rather insouciant youth to a suffering
adult who could identify with others who were needy. A natural politician,a socially adept person, he was the ideal person to be our
president during such a time of trial.

It wasn't that everything he did turned out well. It was that he
was willing to experiment to see what might work. Faced with the twin
agonies of the Great Depression and World War II, he was able to inspire
the country by his leadership to brave its way through the hardships of
that era. America was truly blessed to have had such a great leader during a time of such great peril.