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It starts out with a very superficial biography of FDR. This book is totally and fundamentally filler. That's it. Ok. My expectations were that he would devote a few pages per each 100 day. A biography which was unnecessary since this book is supposed to be about the first hundred days.
Does not contain any scholarily gravitas and does not even try to live up to it's title. Don't buy this book if you are looking for a good biography on FDR. Don't buy this book if you are looking for a detailed anaysis of FDR's achievements in his first 100 days. This is totally ridiculous.
I think it's chapter 34 or 35. You have to wait until almost the end of the book before you finally get to day one in office. Instead we get pages and pages of how Mrs Roosevelt was a lesbian. What a waste of time.
Finally at the very end we get some mention of social security. Whatever. Then we spend more time on useless stuff like how beautiful FDR's voice was. This basically is a puff piece.
Going over all the staffing, legislation, and other accomplishements. But no. So why include a cursory, badly done biography. Let's get to the 100 days.
I wish I could have had this resource back when I was a high school history teacher. This is an incredibly prophetic book, considering today's political climate. The bold and decisive actions taken by FDR foreshadow the actions taken by President Obama, right down to the critics and cries of socialism.
Some have criticised the book for dwelling too much on Roosevelt's illness, youth and the political events which led him to the White House, but they are intrinsic to an understanding of his actions once he got there, particularly his ability to act boldly, decisively and most of all quickly. This work, together with that of Adam Cohen ("Nothing to Fear") and the recent biographies by Jean Edward Smith ("FDR") and Conrad Black ("Champion of Freedom"), reinforce the view that while he was flawed (like all humans), FDR was THE political genius of the 20th century. I love the book and its subject. I enjoyed the author's journalistic, "chatty" style, backed up by thorough references and research (which you can ignore if you prefer). Through a combination of personal qualities, good fortune and circumstance, Roosevelt saved democracy in America, alleviated the worst suffering of the Depression and then saved western civilization from the fascists. Of course, the latter triumph is not the subject of this work, which deals with the events which shaped FDR's presidency and the decisions made during those monumental first 100 days.
But it could easily mean something considerably more benign and even salutary: Roosevelt might have wanted the veterans to, say, pass out food or plant trees. At the most, it was an "option" that was on the mind of others, but Alter gives us no compelling reason to believe that it was ever a lively option for Roosevelt. To be sure, the hold Roosevelt's mother had over him was extraordinary and important. But it requires narration and explication, not psychoanalysis from a distance of several decades.Likewise, Alter believes Roosevelt had an affair with his secretary Marguerite "Missy" LeHand. But that doesn't keep Alter from exclaiming:"But on March 5, 1943, an astonishing thing happened--or more precisely, did not happen. According to Alter, Roosevelt had a classical oedipal complex. He then opines interestingly that if the actions of the first hundred days had been more successful in whipping the Depression, these "social advances" might not have been advanced and made available to future generations (p. For example, it is not enough to say Roosevelt had a controlling and dominating mother and that, understandably, had predictable consequences for his behavior.
Jonathan Alter is smitten with the "defining moment" of presidents and presidential candidates. Alter's most serious speculation, the one that constitutes Roosevelt's central defining moment, concerns Roosevelt's alleged refusal to resort to dictatorial powers upon assumption of the presidency. 274). On an imaginative reading, perhaps. While his polio would be inhibitory for many men, Alter argues, Roosevelt was unlike most men because (now get this) he would someday become president of the United States: "It's also evident that men who become president of the United States tend to have stronger than average libidos" (p.57). If it is not bewildering enough to imagine how Alter managed to measure the libidinous energy of US presidents, his bald assertion is all the more remarkable because the alleged affair occurred before Roosevelt became president, even before he became governor of New York. He identifies the defining moment as the point in time in which "the character or perception of a political figure is crystallized." Yet in his discussion of Roosevelt's defining moment he seems to have in mind various episodes, starting with the assassination attempt on Roosevelt in the winter of 1933 and extending to his inaugural address on March 4, 1933 and beyond through the first 100 days of his presidency. Why Alter insists on using the singular "moment" in his title and throughout the book isn't clear since it is belied by the various moments he provides during which "the character or perception" of Roosevelt becomes increasing more "crystallized." While it is certainly true that "moment" has a more heroic tone, akin to an apotheosis, Alter would confuse the reader less by arguing that greatness evolves over time and, in some cases, is punctuated by occasional defining moments.
It is in nothing that Roosevelt wrote, nor is there one memorialized discussion that he had on the subject with any trusted aide or confidant. Alter presents highly tangential evidence that Roosevelt would have been tempted to institute a benevolent dictatorship, mostly on the order that many people wanted him to institute one (e.g., William Randolph Hearst). Readers will discover that generally when Alter's hypotheses are less psychological and more political, they are more plausible. Does this statement smack of Roosevelt preparing an army to institute martial law. Not all of Alter's speculations are doubtful.
Nowhere do we see any evidence that Roosevelt seriously considered the idea of assuming dictatorial powers. The draft of the American Legion radio address was destined not for the ears of millions of veterans and other Americans, but for nothing more than the speech files of the Roosevelt library, where it lay unexamined for more than 70 years" (p.7).Something discarded becomes evidence of something momentous--a "defining moment." Now that is a stretch. Alter seems to forget that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But Alter loves epical and sweeping conceits. Alter's best evidence is a line from a list of "suggested additions" for a radio speech Roosevelt was to give primarily to veterans belonging to the American Legion:"As new commander-in-chief under oath to which you are still bound I reserve to myself the right to command you in any phase of the situation which now confronts us." How this suggested sentence, whose authorship is unknown and which Roosevelt didn't use in any case, is tantamount to a declaration of dictatorship is anyone's guess.
He points out that most of the enduring "landmark" accomplishments of the New Deal--the SEC, Social Security, the Wagner Act--occurred after the first 100 days of the Roosevelt presidency. He explicitly cites Freud in his account of it, even though virtually no intellectuals take strict Freudianism seriously any more. Political good fortune guarantees undaunted potency.
He grew up at Hyde Park on the Hudson; graduated from Eton and Harvard with time spent at Columbia Law School. FDR also had federal government experience serving as assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Woodrow Wilson administration. Alter focuses on the first 100 days of FDR's administration. FDR was a cousin of his hero Theodore Roosevelt.
Alter's great book is about a great man who saved our nation in its hour of greatest need. Among the programs were the CCC which put thousands of men to work; the NRA and the Social Security Act of 1935. He was a sly politician who kept his innermost thoughts to himself. It's author is Jonathan Alter a columnist for Newsweek magazine. Jonathan Alter's book is the kind of political history which could easily whet a young person's desire to become a historian.
FDR pushed the Congress of the US into making effective law in a time of crisis. FDR eschewed dictatorship and stood for democratic government in the worst crisis in American history since the Civil War. He later worked with polio victims in Warm Springs Georgia also becoming acquainted with common farmers and ordinary people. He was a wealthy only son of Sarah his doting mother and his much older father James. Alter spends half the book examining the pre-presidential life of the great man. America was given hope to rise like a phoenix from the dregs of the horrible Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) was the greatest U.S. These events made him a stronger personality.
FDR had a long term affair with Lucy Rutherford. His was an activist mode of leadership. Not everything FDR tried worked but he kept plugging away as slow progress was made. president of the twentieth century. He knew American history and government like the back of his hand. His rise to the presidency began with his fourth ballot victory at the 1932 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Many of the ideas were first suggested by members of the failed Hoover administration but it was FDR's New Dealers who put them to work for the American people. Some of his plans failed while others succeeded.
The Roosevelt children suffered through nineteen divorces. Roosevelt is well served by this entertaining and informative book. In his fireside chats and newsreels he entered into the homes and hearts of the public. The former New York Assemblymam, former US Vice-Presidential candidate in 1920 learned a good deal about suffering through the ordeal. FDR was a liberal progressive who wanted to put America back to work. With the help of Louie Howe his political guru he served as New York governor from 1928-1932 breaking with former governor Al E.
FDR was the first major political figure to use the media. It is witty, anecdotal, easy to read and informative.
FDR's defining moment came in the first inaugural and the first 100 days when he told the people "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." (based on a quote from Henry David Thoreau). The couple had six children being indulgent parents.
He spoke in a friendly way beginning his speeches by saying "My friends." He conducted 998 press conferences and used Eleanor's wide travels to keep his ear close to the ground of public opinion. After he took office within those days over 15 bills were turned into law.
Smith. Alter contends that it was his polio affliction in 1921 that put steel in Roosevelt.
TVA brought rural electrification to the South and confidence was restored in finance following the banking holiday and efforts to stabalize the fragile economy. His wife Eleanor discovered the infidelity but remained in the marriage.
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