I want to give a highly qualified recommendation for this book. If you love FDR and intend to read a good many books on him, I suggest adding this to your list. If you intend, however, to read only a few books on FDR, I suggest reading other books instead. I've read nearly 20 books on FDR at this point and would put this very far down the list of the most essential books. As a supplement to those other books, this book serves just fine. But it does present a somewhat quirky and sometimes inaccurate portrait of FDR.
Before continuing, which books would I recommend instead? For the 100 days and the New Deal, I would recommend Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s three-volume work on the New Deal and William E. Leuchtenburg's FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT AND THE NEW DEAL 1932-1940. These provide both more detail and more insight into the major legislation going into the New Deal. Schlesinger's work is very long, but definitely worth the time. Although it deals with the war years, Doris Kearns Goodwin's NO ORDINARY TIME -- FRANKLIN AND ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: THE HOME FRONT IN WORLD WAR II makes splendid reading and provides some of the best and sanest analysis of the various individuals making up the extended Roosevelt family. Frank Freidel's books are wonderful, whether the original unabridged multi-volume biography or his one-volume condensation. Kenneth Davis and Geoffrey Ward both have written splendid multi-volume biographies as well, and both can be highly recommended. If I could recommend only one author on Roosevelt, it would probably be John MacGregor Burns, whose two works on Roosevelt -- ROOSEVELT: THE LION AND THE FOX and ROOSEVELT: THE SOLDIER OF FREEDOM -- stand at the pinnacle of FDR studies. He also wrote the classic LEADERSHIP, in which Roosevelt features prominently. The best one-volume biography that was not a condensation of a multi-volume work is Jean Edward Smith's FDR, a recent book that I strongly recommend. Finally, I have not read H. W. Brands's new biography A TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS, but am quite curious to do so.
I would definitely put Alter's book well behind all of these. Even after reading all of these, I found many new insights in Alter's book and I learned a great many things that I didn't already know. Nonetheless, the book has to be used with caution. Alter is a serial exaggerator and is sometimes oddly selective in sifting through the evidence concerning various aspects of Roosevelt and those around him. To take just one example, he states that Lorena Hickok was the great love of Eleanor's life. No doubt she was an important person for a rather brief period, but the Roosevelt children were hardly prudish in discussing their parents' respective love lives and most denied that there was anything romantic between Hick and Eleanor (with the addendum that they were in fact sceptical that she was capable of a physical relationship with anyone, that she was someone who looked upon sex as an exceptionally unpleasant undertaking). Jean Edward Nathan barely mentions Hickok in his biography and other biographers feel that Hickok's role in Eleanor's life has been exaggerated. On the other hand, some of her children felt that Eleanor did have an affair with Earl Miller, the New York state trooper that Alter barely mentions. Yet it is quite certain that Miller and Eleanor were almost inseparable companions for the last thirty-five years of her life, even when he married. After she left the White House and relocated in New York, for instance, Miller took an apartment in the same building. Just as Missy Lehand was FDR's constant companion, so Earl Miller was Eleanor's. This is what I mean when I say that Alter is selective. He has to know that there is a mountain of evidence detailing just how close Eleanor and Earl Miller were, but to mention this would undercut the case for how crucial Hick was to Eleanor. At most one could argue that Hick was to Eleanor as Lucy Mercer was to Franklin, while Earl Miller was Eleanor's equivalent to Missy Lehand.
Another example of Alter's tendency to exaggerate is the portrait he paints of Roosevelt going into the election and his first term. He works overtime to quote every possible individual who saw FDR as a frivolous dilettante incapable of leading the nation, intentionally ignoring the equally large number of individuals who saw FDR as the logical person to be president and lead the country in a time of crisis. Anyone doubting that FDR had many passionate and well-informed supporters need only read the first volume in Schlesinger's trilogy, THE CRISIS OF THE OLD ORDER. Yes, many, like Walter Lippmann, thought FDR a lightweight, but there was anything but unanimity on him. Besides, FDR won in a landslide. It wasn't just a case of people voting against Hoover, but a substantial number of people voting for someone they felt was eminently qualified to be president.
Alter is correct that FDR was not doctrinaire or an ideologue about the content of the New Deal, but this overlooks the fact that he brought into the White House a radically new conception of the role of government in dealing with the problems facing the American people. Unlike Hoover, Coolidge, and Harding (three of the weakest presidents in American history), FDR believed that government had a crucial and direct role to play in all of the major problems confronting American life. FDR understood that there is no Invisible Hand that would intervene to coordinate the efforts of individual in a market economy (actually, Adam Smith didn't believe that either - in the passage where he introduces the idea of the Invisible Hand Smith expresses astonishment that uncoordinated actions did not ALWAYS lead to unwelcome results - this is very far from the idea foisted on Smith that the Invisible Hand always produces happy results) but that government had to intervene to minimize the harm caused by unregulated greed. In speech after speech and conversation after conversation leading up to his election and inauguration FDR iterated and reiterated this vision. So, while he was intentionally somewhat loose on the details, he was crystal clear that the only entity that could solve the crisis was government, not the private sector or the market. Alter acknowledges this even while underplaying it.
No doubt many of Alter's exaggerations are due to dramatic license. He shapes FDR's story in order to create a more dynamic story. He also seems to enjoy debunking widely shared myths. He wants to portray FDR as not as qualified to be president as most accounts. Yet to do this he has to downplay such things as his work in the New York legislature and his many, many years as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, which at the time was one of the largest entities of the federal government.
So, I return to my original point. There are many interesting moments in Alter's book, but it is not a balanced, nuanced portrait of FDR. He leaves out details that would challenge the picture he is trying to paint and persistently ignores contrary evidence. I definitely recommend the book, but only if one has read a substantial number of the many other very good books on FDR. The only thing that elevates this somewhat in popular interest would be that on 60 MINUTES Barack Obama cited this as one of the two books that he was reading as he was preparing to enter the Office of President. But I would recommend the other book - Jean Edward Smith's biography - far more strongly than I would this.
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