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

H.W. Brands (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2009

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A brilliant evocation of the qualities that made FDR one of the most beloved and greatest of American presidents.
 
Drawing on archival material, public speeches, correspondence and accounts by those closest to Roosevelt early in his career and during his presidency, H. W. Brands shows how Roosevelt transformed American government during the Depression with his New Deal legislation, and carefully managed the country's prelude to war. Brands shows how Roosevelt's friendship and regard for Winston Churchill helped to forge one of the greatest alliances in history, as Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin maneuvered to defeat Germany and prepare for post-war Europe.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best of the Month, November 2008: With Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, H.W. Brands penetrates the clenched grin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a masterful biography of one of America's most beloved leaders. Though born into the upper crust of society, FDR dedicated his career to fighting for the common good and the ideals of the American Dream. With the same exhaustive research familiar to fans of his biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Jackson, Brands provides a portrait of an unflinching (and often recalcitrant) figure whose unshakable confidence inspired a beleaguered nation. FDR's path may have been unorthodox (evidenced by an unprecedented 12 years spent as commander-in-chief) and arguably illegal (the New Deal didn't always work well with the Constitution), but his shared goal of a stronger America at home and abroad endeared him to voters of varying backgrounds. "We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern," proclaimed Roosevelt in 1937. "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." -- -Dave Callanan --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

It is unfortunate for University of Texas historian Brands (Andrew Jackson) that his serviceable biography of Franklin Roosevelt comes on the heels of Jean Smith's magisterial Francis Parkman Prize winner, FDR (2007). Still, Brands provides an entirely adequate narrative detailing the well-known facts of Roosevelt's life. We have the young Knickerbocker aristocrat somewhat tentatively entering the dog-eat-dog world of local Democratic politics in New York's Hudson Valley. We have him embarking on a marriage with his cousin Eleanor that was fated to be politically successful but personally disastrous. We also have the somewhat spoiled son of privilege facing the first real battle of his life—polio—and emerging with greatly enhanced fortitude and empathy. Appropriately, Brands gives two-thirds of his book to FDR's presidency and its two most dramatic events: the domestic war against devastating economic depression (fought with tools that many in America's upper classes considered socialist), and the international war against Axis power aggression. It is fitting that Roosevelt commands the amount of scholarly attention that he does, but sad that so much is wholly redundant with what has come before. 16 pages of photos. (Nov. 4)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 888 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; 1 Reprint edition (September 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307277941
• ISBN-13: 978-0307277947
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.8 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #12 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( R ) > Roosevelt, Franklin D.

More About the Author

H.W. Brands taught at Texas A&M University for sixteen years before joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is the Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History. His books include Traitor to His Class, Andrew Jackson, The Age of Gold, The First American, and TR. Traitor to His Class and The First American were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fearless Leader at Our Helm, June 9, 2009

By 

Joan A. Adamak "Joan Adamak" (Prescott Valley, AZ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Hardcover)

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 the CCC's, which one ignorant talk show host compared it to slave labor. One man who worked in the CCCs said it was the only labor available to teenagers and kept them off of the street and starving. They got three good meals a day, a bed and $15 a month. That was more than he would have received in his household. Our great parks are a result of their labor. Families who were hungry sent their children to relatives to care for. The books by Steinback truly represent some of the horrors of those times because the dust bowl exaggerated the already collapse of much of American life. In the West, some of the family men who were on welfare later were hired by a government agency who built federal projects like Grand Coulee dam in Washington State.

During the war years, Roosevelt carried the weight of maintaining the morale of this country when so many young men were drafted to the military to go to a foreign country and probably be killed. It is obvious now that Roosevelt knew that at some time Japan would attack, but we were an isolationist country as the book shows and how difficult it was for him to help Churchill and Great Britain. I remember the newsreels showing ships carrying Lend Lease materials for England that later were sunk by German submarines. All of this was very frightening to us and Roosevelt's fireside chats helped maintain calm and determination in this country. He stirred up the civilians to deal with rationing of gas, food, sugar, the cumbersome ration cards and instilled in us children an energy to do our part by such measures as finding discarded scrap iron that could be reused for war time.

This man was a giant, which the book shows, yet also covers his mistakes and weaknesses. This book truly filled in the blanks for me and also added in a most interesting way the life of this man. I can truly recommend it for everyone who believes in this country.

105 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Solid History by H.W. Brands, November 23, 2008

By 

Cory Geurts (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Hardcover)

I am a big fan of H.W. Brands, so I was excited when I learned that FDR was going to be his next release. Brands' literary style is superb; he always provides ample background into the subject so that the reader walks away with a thorough understanding, yet he is able to portray these people in an engaging way so one never has the feeling of having read a dry textbook.

Traitor To His Class is an exceptional book. You get all the background, not only of FDR, Eleanor, Sara, & family, but also of the political scene of the time including TR and Woodrow Wilson, the failed economy and FDR's New Deal, WWII and Churchill from the ingenious 'lend lease' up through Pearl Harbor, Truman and ultimately his death at Warm Springs. Brands is able to place the reader inside the mindset of FDR as all of this history is being made.

It is difficult to write a concise review of such a well-researched and masterfully written work. If you've read Brands before, you'll love Traitor To His Class just as much if not more than his other works. For those who are new to Brands and are looking for an FDR biography/history, I would highly recommend this one due to the attention to detail and intelligent yet friendly presentation. You won't be disappointed.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and very timely history, December 12, 2008

By 

J. Landau (Orinda, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Hardcover)

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.