Customer Reviews

Fdr

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Frankiln Roosevelt is most often thought of as the President that led the United States most of the way through World War II. In this book, Alsop takes a different approach to capturing FDR's life. While Alsop sees his book as a memoir of his interactions with FDR, it rarely comes off that way. The fact that it feels so much like a biography makes Alsop's commentary annoying at times.

Many of the pictures in the book are treasures that are only in the possession of the Roosevelt family. That in itself, makes this book worth the price. Many of this photos show how physically fragile the president was near the end of his life. Many of the stories in this book are ommitted from history books, but are certainly worth knowing. One example is the story of Roosevelt trying to add most justices to the Supreme Court in order to get them to vote to his liking.

My one problem with the book is its concise nature. Based on the small number of pages, much of FDR's life is not documented. Alsop arrogantly negelcts some facts, such as the onset of FDR's polio, because he believes they are common knowledge. However, the format and photographs compensate for this omission.

A beautifully produced (and large size) history/reference of FDR. It gives a solid general overview of his life and career, but the best feature has to be the large photos throughout (be sure to consider getting the more sturdy hardbound edition)...