Franklin D. Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 1882-1939 by Roger Daniels

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 1882-1939 Reviews

• 
  Sherwood Smith

  Copy received from NetGalley.
  
  I picked this book hoping that Daniels would have found access to material that would get inside the head of this fascinating man, so important to American (and during WW II) world history. But the author says up front that he is not going to be able to do that as FDR left little of his inner thinking behind--though, as we find out at the end of the volume, he was the first President to donate his papers intact to be archived, instead of destroying most, as had been the case by many of his predecessors.
  
  And except for once, fairly early on, Daniels does not indulge in mind reading. This despite a truly phenomenal amount of research. Fully 25% of this very long book is notes and bibliography--and this covers half the story. (Apparently the second half, covering WW II to the end of FDR's life, will appear in a companion volume.)
  
  The book is eminently readable, and being only an armchair historian, I was glad to see thumbnail histories of the many, many key players on the political scene. I also appreciated the narrative voice: instead of hiding behind a frequently turgid pretence at journalistic neutrality (no historical record is ever truly neutral), Daniels comes right out on stage when he wants to voice an opinion.
  
  But the detail is there, sometimes eye-glazingly there, especially in lists of statistics. I don't think it would be a fast read for anyone but those well versed in those mind-bloggling economic and demographic statistics, just to point out two areas often delved into deeply. There is also, by necessity, a gigantic cast, first in the years when FDR was gaining allies, and then in his expanding government.
  
  In only one area was I disappointed: I did not see enough about Eleanor's influence on FDR. At times I set this book aside to read Blanche Wiesen Cook's monumental biography of Eleanor Roosevelt to try to gain a better picture, but otherwise I found the book to be balanced, and at times an eye-opener, specifically with respect to FDR's lack of sympathy with, and his failure to include, African Americans in his growing social awareness and fight for equality and rights--until later, when he realized that these people were voters, too. And secondly, Daniels illustrates with what appear to be unassailable evidence that FDR did not in fact have any Grand Plan, but caromed between ideas and policies that were often contradictory as his early policies devolved into what was called the New Deal--which in turn ramified into later policies and turns of event as experienced during my own lifetime.
  
  Nor does FDR escape scrutiny in murky areas, such as in his less-than-scrupulous handling of the Justices and courts. The book is replete with quotes from speeches, his and others', that illustrate the mindset and language of the times. Daniels also furnishes telling detail about FDR's handling of his disability, and the lengths he went to to present himself as healthy and strong because it was necessary for the US President to look strong as the symbol of the country's recovery from the devastation of the Depression.
  
  The supplemental detail was so thorough that it raised an issue for me. I received an ARC copy, so there was no indication whether or not the Notes were hypertexted. I hope so, for the sake of readers paying full price. It was an enormous pain to have to slide back and forth between the text and its many, many footnotes. Most of which were acute and enlightening, and should not be skipped over. Just as I loathe the fashion these days of printing the Notes in the back of a book instead of at the bottom of the page, I really, really dislike ebooks that require a lot of swimming around to find supporting material. The tech is there to jump one back and forth without losing the point. I hope they utilized it in the digital version.
• 
  Nancy

  A Detailed History of FDR From His Early Political Career to the Fall of France During WWII
  
  Although FDR left no detailed memoir giving the reasons for his political decisions, Daniels has captured his words and used them in the context of events to give us a picture of what FDR thought. The book opens with a brief view of Franklin's early life, but the concentration is on his political career. While I had read several biographies of Roosevelt, this is the first one to go in depth about his early office holding. I found it instructive in light of his later political ideas including the New Deal.
  
  I also found it fascinating to read about how FDR was able to control the information about his polio and was able to act as normal as possible. It's enlightening to see how he overcome his affliction.
  
  On the positive side, this is a very detailed, perhaps definitive, look at FDR. Because there is so much detail from quotes to actions to what other historians have said about him, it is a sometime difficult book to read. However, if you're interested in a comprehensive history, this is it.
  
  On the negative side, because the book is crammed with historical detail it is sometimes hard to read. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're interested in becoming immersed in FDRs life.
  
  The book ends before the US enters WWII. Although the transitions seems rather abrupt when you've been following the history closely, it leaves you wanting to go more in depth into the next segment of FDRs career.
  
  If you enjoy history, this is an extremely well done book. I highly recommend it.
  
  I reviewed this book for Net Galley.
• 
  Jim

  Having read the late James Macgregor Burns’ award winning two volume set on FDR (The Lion and the Fox and The Soldier of Freedom) and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize winning No Ordinary Time, I wondered what I would find in Roger Daniels’ first volume of a two-volume set on FDR, Franklin D Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 1882-1889 (University of Illinois Press, 2015). What I found was an interesting and insightful study of FDR based on Daniels’ goal of making “Roosevelt’s verbal messages to the American people and the world an organizing principle.”
  
  Ignoring most of FDR’s personal life from birth to the end of 1939, Daniel’s provides an interesting and scholarly study of what FDR said which to me provides a deeper level of study of our the longest serving American President and his administration. It is also an eminent historian (Daniels is the Charles Phelps Taft Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Cincinnati) working with not just the words of FDR but also the various interpretations of FDR and his administration and making scholarly assessments of both the man and his administration.
  
  I found Daniels’ first volume to be detailed without being tedious and helpful in understanding the victories and setbacks of FDR’s administration as well as FDR himself; the New Deal program, his leadership style that often had multiple sources reporting to him; his resoluteness in the face of polio and his work to eliminate the disease. Daniels’ portrait of FDR is sympathetic but also objective and the book is a well researched and documented study.
  
  I liked this book not just for the subject itself, FDR, but also for the way it was written, scholarly, enlightening, engaging and helpful. In other words, a well written biography and assessment of one the United States’ top three Presidents.
  
  I rate this book an ‘outstanding’ read.
  
  Note: I received a galley copy of this book from Net Galley, via the publisher, in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.
• 
  Jim Bowen

  Hmmm.... I'm not altogether sure about this book, which is about Franklin D. Roosevelt's life up to 1939 (presumeably there'll be another book about the war years). The author uses FDR's public utterances when he wrote the book.
  
  It is the public utterances that I think cause the issues I have with the book. Don't get me wrong, it's interesting, and covers the entirity of his life very well, but I feel there wasn't anything here that you couldn't have got from other, shorter, sources, like Roy Jenkins' pocket biography, or even Robert Caro's biographies of LBJ, or even got yourself.
  
  In addition, if you're only relying on one type of source, you#re bound to wonder if the author has missed something.
  
  So overall, it's ok, but if you know anything more than a thumbnail sketch of FDR, I'm not sure what you'll gain by reading this bbok, and even if you do you're going to wonder how accurate it is. As an example, Daniels suggests that FDR could keep the New Deal going after the Court Packing catastrophe, and that the campaign against members of your own party (as he did in 1938) was in some way justified.
  
  One last thing.... I'm British, and I work in China, and Britain has a long history. In most cases there are explanations or justifications for what we did across the world. We asset stripped pretty hard, but we weren't arse's about it *unlike the French or Belgians), With China, you can't make that claim. we were drug dealers, and there's no good way to spin that.
  
  The same thing can be said of FDR's maternal grandfaster, who made his money as an opium dealer (in fact a drug dealer), which is the one thing I really didn't know before, and isn't mentioned anywhere I don't think.
  
  Incic, when I asked one of the kids why she wanted to study in the UK, given what we'd done, she said (to paraphrase the grat sage Jimmy Connors) "You're a long way from perfect, but we found someone who's worse."
• 
  David Lucander

  Daniels' biggest contribution: how did FDR get so much liberal/progressive stuff accomplished in a society that is usually pretty conservative. As a study in political leadership about how to get stuff done, it's something that I wish was out in time for Obama to have read back in 2008.
  
  Thoroughly researched and smartly written, this is a biography authored by an eminent historian for other historians. I'd give this more stars for being a hugely important book about a hugely important President, but I just can't see the average reader (read: not a professor) getting into this.
  
  Bias alert: Daniels is very sympathetic to Keynesian economics. Libertarian types beware, you'll read this and freak the f*ck out every other page.
• 
  Armando Negron

  If you are looking for a detailed study of Franklin D. Roosevelt's rise to prominence you found it. When I first started reading this book I had but just the most basic knowledge of Roosevelt's political career. After reading this I can tell you that I have learned the origins of many reforms put into place that we still see today.
  
  FDR had a charisma that made his physical limitations seem like they were not there. We all know how polio paralyzed him, but Daniels research lets us see how Roosevelt handled this: head on and sometimes with a smile in his face. We see countless stories of him going on with his daily life, aided of course, but not being self-conscious. In a way it is inspiring, this man bound to a wheelchair or crutches was still capable of having this powerful aura that captivated a nation. At the same time this affliction gave him a purpose, a side fight that eventually led to get America get rid of infantile paralysis.
  
  But this book is not entirely about his personal affliction, this book is also about politics. We see a man that rose through various positions in government until eventually becoming president in one of the most precarious economical times of the last century. The back story of the Great Depression seems like the age-old formula of disaster that we are familiar with. Banks making unwise loans, unemployment, political conflicts, all of this made worse by the absence of financial regulation.
  
  Enter the New Deal, which the book dedicates most of its content. Roosevelt initiated many programs that helped started turning the country around, and that nowadays we even take for granted. Regulation was established, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the unemployed were given not only sustenance but a job to feel useful, the National Labor Relations Board got a head start, child labor was put under control, and the future of these working-class citizens was safeguarded with the introduction of Social Security.
  
  Now, not all is a fairy tale. We see the politician side of FDR, you can say the darker side of things. Like the author says, even the best of presidents "do many things that are not pretty." Some decisions were not fair, and he even turned a blind eye to the evils of segregation. As politics go, alliances were made and broken, people were betrayed, but it's all in the day's work for a president.
  
  The last chapters start to show the shift from the New Deal to what eventually be World War II. It is rather interesting to see how the US reacted to international politics back then. It was a given that intervention in international affairs was not public policy, but after World War II this all changed.
  
  And then it ends. While the title clearly states the scope of this book, I was hoping for a smoother finish. I had to double check that I was truly done, as it literally just stops.
  
  One thing to know is that this book is MASSIVE. I would read for hours and feel like I was still scratching the surface of it's contents. Daniels did not spare a detail when compiling this piece, which at times makes the read somewhat hard. You not only get the details of FDR, but those around him. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone that has a passion for presidential politics. If you are just a casual reader of politics, then I will recommend you skip this book.
  
  ** I received a free copy of this book as an ARC by the author/publisher in exchange of a honest review.
• 
  Mark

  When it comes to biographies much is written about a select few, even if there is nothing new to say. This is not to say, though, that there can't be anything new to say about a subject, as there are times when new material becomes available, or increasingly when authors can more easily incorporate a wider range of older material into their book. But additional material in itself isn't enough unless the author can mine it for new insights as well. This is what Roger Daniels has done in his new two-volume biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In many ways this is a passion project that has been gestating over the course of his long and distinguished career as an historian, for as he writes in the introduction, he has wanted to write a biography of FDR since he was in graduate school in the 1950s(!). Now retired, he brings a lifetime of learning to his effort. Focusing on Roosevelt's public career, Daniels reexamines much of it using his subject’s speeches, press conferences, and other statements -- sources long available but typically assessed through the lens of received wisdom. Instead of accepting that wisdom, however, Daniels looks at them afresh and combines them with contemporary accounts to argue for a different interpretation of America's 32nd president.
  
  Underling his approach is his argument that Roosevelt was not the "second-class intellect" so famously claimed by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., but a person of considerable intellectual ability, who undertook considerable study in consultation with noted experts before formulating policy. He also pushes back against the image of Roosevelt as an indifferent administrator, asserting that throughout his presidency he demonstrated a mastery of governing as well as of politics. This ability is demonstrated not just in terms of his many successes, but even with his perceived failures, as Daniels sees the outcome of his unsuccessful Supreme Court "packing" effort in 1937 as more successful than has been credited, as it paved the way for the ongoing transformation of government that he was effecting.
  
  It is with such analysis that Daniels provides a fresh look at what seems a tired subject. While a favorable interpretation it is not an entirely uncritical one, as Daniels faults Roosevelt for not doing more in the realm of race relations (a subject in which the author specialized). It makes for a engaging book, one that should not be so easily dismissed as more of the same but viewed instead as offering something new in our understanding of Roosevelt and his legacy.
• 
  Melek

  Actually, this book is worth 5/5. I've said ""well-searched" about many non-fiction books I've reviewed, but this was something else. It captured all the information that is possible to find, from how it looks to me.
  
  On the other hand, it's hard to read. Apart from being long (560 pages), all those details make it look clustered and after a while of reading, everything starts to blur. Plus, the writing style is not too interesting either, so I think you have to be devoted to the subject to be able to get sucked in.
  
  Overall, it is good as a reference book, but not for the casual reader. 3.5-4/5
• 
  Christian Holub

  Now that I'm much more attuned to politics, I find myself eager to read a lot of history. Given the problems facing our modern society, I figured it'd be instructive to learn about the last time U.S. government changed society for the better: FDR's New Deal. This book was a great source; super knowledgeable, to-the-point, dispensed with a lot of myths that have grown up around Roosevelt, and (most important of all) does a great job of keeping track of how FDR and the New Deal helped (or, in many cases, didn't help) African-Americans in particular. Would recommend if you're interested in learning more about his political career. Between Ian Kershaw's two-volume Hitler biography and now this, I've grown to like the format.