Customer Reviews

Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History

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I bought this book, on some fair measure, due to the review written by Mr. Passos on Amazon's web site.I had heard the name Harry Hopkins for many years, and had the somewhat vague knowedge that Harry Hopkins was an intimate advisor and assistant to Franklin Roosevelt. I was curious when I saw the book at Amazon, and I bought it.
This is an outstanding book, and it easy for me to see why it is a Pulitzer Prize winner. The book is as much about the Roosevelt administration and related national and international history as it is about Messrs. Roosevelt & Hopkins. One of the interesting things about this book is that it was written in 1947;I reminded myself of that throughout my reading. For the most part it is written in the first person by Robert Sherwood, a gifted author who worked with Hopkins while in the Roosevelt administration. I gave a lot of credibility to the book because of the author's proximity to Hopkins and Rooseveltas well as the short time span between the actual events and the publishing of the book.
The book is well written by a man that had substantial prior experience in writing show business type material. In a number of instances the author puts himself on the scene of events, but by no means limits the book to his experiences with Roosevelt & Hopkins. There is considerable detail...sometimes when I read a review that makes that claim I suspect that I will encounter much minutiae with boredom to follow. Not the case here; there are many interesting explanitions, facts, discussions, etc. I found myself continuously engaged as some of the most compelling history of the U.S. unfolded at the hands of the author.

I first read this book when I was in high school in 1952. For several years I had been captivated by politics and political biography, reading everything I could get my hands on. Sherwood's ROOSEVELT AND HOPKINS was the best. In the more than half century since, my passion for political writing and biography has continued unabated, and on many occasions I have recommended this book to others. Since 1991 I have traveled to Russia dozens of times and frequently recommend this book to English speaking Russian academics and politicians there. Every person to whom I have recommended it, here or in Russia, has seen fit to tell me how much they appreciated the book and the recommendation. Recently I began to wonder though. Was the book really as good as I recalled it from my first and only reading over 58 years ago? So I re-read it. It stood the test of time and of memory. It was even better than I recalled. It is an old and good friend, as alive, vibrant, and informative today as if all that the monumental and world-changing people and events described in it had happened yesterday.
Kenneth E. MacWilliams
New York City

I started reading this book and couldn't stop reading.
When you finish reading it you miss the main characters. You would like to meet Mr. Hopkins in person, but unfortunately that is impossible.

The facts, ideas and the history in the book demonstrates that America had the most important political leader of the XXth century as president during second world war.

My personal opinion is that Mr. Roosevelt is the man that was responsible for truly changing the direction that history was about to take.

I read a translated version of the book.

When a brilliant dramatist & political speechwriter takes on the task of writing about a New Deal operative that he admires & expresses a desire to assure that his subject won't recede into history without recognition, one might be justified in examining that author's objectivity closely. But Sherwood's biography of Hopkins reveals an equally obvious intent to write a complete and accurate history. The result does credible homage to the man that steered the New Deal through relief efforts, war logistics & diplomacy--and to his biographer.

Besides commemorating Harry Hopkins, the book covers FDR and his Presidency. But it does so by interspersing material from Hopkins's personal papers between long quotations from secret communications (which would be embargoed for five decades nowadays) and the author's own experience of principle players & events. The result is a bit long & more tedious than the source from which the technique was borrowed, Churchill's history of WWII. Still, his insider's look at the Roosevelt White House provides insight that is available nowhere else. There are errors, inevitable in a work this comprehensive; Sherwood took responsibility by correcting & documenting them in the second edition, except for one. He has Roosevelt leaving Boston's Back Bay to give a speech at the Boston Arena, which is in the Back Bay. But such errors are niggling. This is an indispensible work for anyone who wants to know what Roosevelt, Hopkins, Churchill, De Gaulle & Stalin did and said--and how they interacted. It makes Stalin's post-war policy clear: "Never again," and Stalin was going to make sure of it, by any means necessary. It also explicitly points out the weakness of the U. S. Constitution at times of war.

Robert E. Sherwood's Roosevelt and Hopkins is not light reading but a detailed and analytical narrative of Sherwood's years in the Whitehouse. Sherwood was placed to observe both principals and evaluate their relationship and the impact of that relationship on the United States and the world. A reader may be struck, as I am, with the similarity between today's Tea Party zealots and the Isoloationists of the thirties and early forties. The book is well worth reading.

Those coming across Robert Sherwood's ROOSEVELT & HOPKINS might get the idea from the title that it is a biographical / historical study of Franklin Roosevelt's right-hand man, Harry Hopkins, and his relationship with the president. It certainly is, but as such it leaves something to be desired, being neither an astute historical document nor much of a biography of Hopkins, and overstuffed at that.

However, that said it is still a very valuable book. Sherwood, who was one of Roosevelt's speechwriters, chose to use Hopkins' wartime notes as the basis for his narrative, fleshing it out with his, Sherwood's, own recollections of the Roosevelt Administration. It's not the best-written book, not a balanced history nor a thorough biography -- but as a historical resource, Hopkin's notes are priceless, and it also has significant value as a memoir of the Roosevelt White House. Maybe not brilliant, but I can say it is a significant resource for anyone interested in the period.

Selon la revue Foreign Affairs, « Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate story » est un des meilleurs livres sur la diplomatie américaine, publié il y a plus de 50 ans. En effet, ce livre est un incontournable pour tous ceux qui sont intéressés à la Deuxième Guerre mondiale et aux trois grands, Roosevelt, Churchill et Staline. Et c'est dans l'ombre du Président Roosevelt que se distingue un personnage d`exception : Harry Hopkins. Ami intime et confident de Roosevelt, cet homme, après avoir été un des grands architectes du New Deal, a réussi discrètement pendant toute la guerre à établir et à maintenir l'alliance entre les trois grands alliés, un véritable tour de force. Hopkins connaissait, comprenait et aimait Roosevelt et lui était entièrement dévoué. Il résidait à la Maison - Blanche et faisait partie de la famille. Homme d'action, il savait actualiser les pensées du Président rapidement. Premier émissaire américain auprès de Churchill et de Staline, Hopkins gagna et conserva leur confiance par sa sincérité et l'énoncé direct de sa pensée; Churchill le surnomma amicalement « Lord Root of the matter ».

L'auteur de ce livre, Robert E. Sherwood, écrivain reconnu pour ses pièces de théâtre et ses scénarios de film (trois prix Pulitzer et un Oscar) se joignit dès le début de la guerre à l'équipe de rédaction des discours de Roosevelt sous la direction de son ami Hopkins. Il nous permet d'entrer dans la Maison Blanche et de vivre des moments impérissables par son style vivant et imagé. Sherwood a eu l'avantage d'être le premier à avoir accès aux archives de Hopkins immédiatement après sa mort en 1946 et de pouvoir interviewer à chaud les principaux acteurs. Paru en 1948, son livre donnait une première appréciation de l'activité intense qui régnait autour de ceux qui décidaient de la vie de millions de personnes. Écrit à la première personne, ce livre tient à la fois de la narration, de la biographie, de l'histoire et de la collection de documents, car on y trouve verbatim de larges extraits des comptes rendus de Hopkins au sujet des grandes conférences (Placentia Bay, Casablanca, Québec,Téhéran, Yalta), de ses rencontres avec les autorités civiles et militaires éminentes, des extraits de sa correspondence ou des discours du Président. Le compte rendu de sa dernière rencontre avec Staline et Molotov à la demande exprès de Truman suite à l'échec de la conférence de San Francisco (1945) demeure mémorable. Le tout se lit avec énormément de plaisir et nous permet d'entrer dans l'intimité de tout ce monde et de mieux comprendre l' esprit, le courage et l'ardeur qui les animaient tous. Ce livre est un classique et il a valu à Sherwood un autre prix Pulitzer.