My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Jean Edward Smith’s biography of FDR is one of the most complete and compelling reads on the life of one of the greatest presidents of the United States. Largely chronological, Smith’s biography keeps the different aspects of FDR’s life in perspective. This is no easy task given that the time period in which FDR was in power was the most tumultuous in living memory. Where some biographies of FDR get understandably pulled in the direction of any number of the supporting characters, many of whom could and do have biographies in their own right, Smith maintains the steady path of telling FDR’s own story.
As impenetrable as FDR was and remains to his contemporaries and historians, Smith ads light touches of personal insights into the private life of a political master. Admired for his stoicism in the face of his personal trauma of paralysis, we see rare occasions where FDR lets his guard down such as upon the death of his doting mother Sara and his leaving a large portion of his estate in his will to his secretary Missy LeHand.
While Smith pulls no punches in looking at FDR’s numerous errors, such as the court packing fiasco and the unconstitutional internment of Japanese Americans, he tells FDR’s story in such a way that it is much easier to consider the whole instead of the errors isolated in and of themselves and to judge him accordingly. For example, his often criticized lack of response to the genocide of the Jews of Europe was clearly not a lack of response or concern on FDR’s part but a real inability to do much about it with military means once the truth became known. We see FDR’s health failing while he simultaneously runs international affairs in the midst of the worst conflict of the 20th Century as well as running for reelection and keeping an eye on domestic issues.
Smith does a tremendous service for FDR’s legacy in helping us all to understand more thoroughly the great leadership and the great sacrifice that FDR made. In a fitting final tribute at the end of this fantastic biography, Smith quotes Senator Robert Taft who sums up best the life of FDR “He dies a hero of the war, for he literally worked himself to death in the service of the American people.”