Franklin Delano Roosevelt
A respected New Deal historian seems the ideal person to write what amounts to a first book on FDR. At any rate, Brinkley neither worships nor assails his subject, nor repeats his The End of Reform (1995) to the effect that liberalism changed from favoring free trade and personal liberties to prioritizing escalating consumption and economic growth as FDR responded to the overlapping challenges of depression and world war. He hews closely to the key events of Roosevelt’s life and, especially, administration. He notes Roosevelt’s early development of personal secretiveness and a charming facade to mask emotion and inspire others’ confidence. His tracing of Roosevelt’s presidency attests FDR’s pragmatic and experimental problem-solving approach. While reporting incidents that confirm Roosevelt’s preference for saying one thing and doing another, Brinkley doesn’t accuse him of subterfuge and duplicity, which will incense the legions of FDR detractors almost as much as will Brinkley’s silence about the viciously hardball politics they say FDR played. Let the critics fume. This is a good introduction, not a summary judgment. --Ray Olson