Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
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.
