Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

by H.W. Brands

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A brilliant evocation of one of the greatest presidents in American history by the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War

"It may well be the best general biography of Franklin Roosevelt we will see for many years to come." --The Christian Science Monitor

Drawing on archival material, public speeches, correspondence and accounts by those...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307277941
• ISBN13: 9780307277947
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 912 Pages
• Weight: 2.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.9" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

No Dust Jacket

Book Was Listed As Very Good, It Was Anything But Vg.. Dust Cover Was Missing, There Were Pages Torn And Some Not There, This Is Not Normal. Usually Boos Come As Advertised, Not So In This Case

Fearless Leader at Our Helm

Traitor to His Cause When I first saw the size of this book, I hesitated to read something so daunting, but I was born in 1930, my parents were Republicans and didn't know the overall picture and only saw what seemed to be waste occurring. I decided to read this book to determine the truth of events that I could remember from having been a child. Although I stray from reviewing the book per se, since this has already been adequately done, I want to show the readers how this man left a lasting impression and love by the American people, and his enemies were usually of a political nature. It is truly difficult to comprehend how an individual raised in an atmosphere of such wealth and power could turn his back on it as he did. This author did such an excellent job of showing Roosevelt, the man, and how hard he worked to finally get to the Presidency. The book deeply covered the corruption of politics in D.C. and the country and the maneuvering that took place. It also showed how FDR could manipulate people. This book truly opened up politics as it was and is. In the newsreels he never showed his physical pain caused by the braces. In fact, the newsreels photographed him in such a way that most of us did not know how crippled he was. I never would have thought of him as being handsome because I saw him on the newsreels when he was older. The newspapers never revealed his extra-marital relationships and so that came as a shock years later to the public at large. I truly commend his consideration of the people of Warm Springs, Georgia, which caused him to try to increase wages for the very poor, which the book hints he never realized until he had spent time in the rural areas. His developing the resort into a place for his comfort and then for the healing of other polio victims must have come from a facet of his inner being not exhibited before. I saw the little white house at Warm Springs, which looked like a hunting cabin--very unpretentious. There was a bedroom adjacent to FDR, which was occupied by Missy LeHand who was his secretary and with him throughout the rest of his life. There was a movie shown at Warm Springs revealing that Eleanor did not like it and would not live there. In the beginning the roof leaked, wind whistled through the walls and it was too rugged for a city-bred woman. She also strenuously objected to FDR paying for it with the bulk of his inheritance. No one can imagine the hardships of the years from 1930 to about 1942 for the American people. Rich and poor alike lost their money in the banks when the banks failed and could not pay off depositors. My parents lost their savings of $5,000, which in those days was about like $50,000 now. The failure of the banks left people destitute and starving. I didn't understand why he called in all of the gold from private citizens. Probably every type of catastrophe conceivable for a country to experience faced FDR. He was highly criticized for instituting t

Fascinating and very timely history

Seldom does one find an 800-page history text to be a "page turner", but this is such a book. Brands is a superb biographer; he organizes and tells the story of the first half of the 20th century in an absolutely fascinating way. One cannot help but recognize how little people and politics have changed -- the same greed and corruption among politicians and Wall Street, the same theme of conservative versus progressive politics and of government once again coming to the rescue of free-market capitalism. The similarities to the current economic and political situation require careful consideration by the reader. Put this together with Behrman's "The Most Noble Adventure" regarding the Marshall Plan and you follow many of the same players into the next generation. Both books are written so well as to read like novels. A great gift for anyone interested in history and/or politics.