5 out of 5 stars
The two volumes of James MacGregor Burns’ magisterial political biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt are unique in their intricate and nuanced understanding of FDR as a political operator. While other biographies may give one more of a feel for the man as a person or hone in on one aspect or another of his life, there is no better political analysis of FDR’s presidency and political career than that which Burns has written.
In The Lion and the Fox Burns looks at FDR’s political life up to 1940. This includes a detailed account of the ins and outs of New Deal policy making and FDR’s political role in it. The title is taken from Machiavelli who notes the importance of having both cunning and decisiveness. Burns explores many examples of FDR’s mixture of both qualities and how these attributes came to be formed. Always with the political decisions of the president in mind, Burns details the development of FDR’s character from his earliest moments to eventual triumph in social and political spaces; starting with Groton, Harvard and on and up through the New York Governorship. Interspersed are welcome political cartoons and illustrations that bring the feeling of the varying time periods to life.
Undoubtedly the best of the two volumes, The Soldier of Freedom looks at FDR’s war leadership and attempts to create an international organization where Wilson, with his doomed League of Nations, had failed. Describing FDR’s leadership at this time is no easy task but Burns handles it with an astute gift for insightful analysis. He does note how FDR must, of necessity, become more decisive than he had previously been comfortable with due to the pressures of international conflict. The at times intentional confusion and competition FDR set up among his subordinates during the New Deal years had to be jettisoned in order to manage the war successfully. Regardless, Burns shows how FDR managed to maintain his power and skill as a politician in the midst of international and national command.
Reading both volumes of this political biography is an absolute necessity for any student of FDR and for that matter any student of US and international politics more generally. No book written before or since captures the political animal that Roosevelt was in the insightful way Burns has done – whether lion or fox.