Clocking in at over 1,100 pages, Conrad Black's biography on FDR eclipses the previous title-holder for the largest book I've ever read by about 50 pages.
It's no small feat when one considers that it was the Penguin single-volume History of the World.
At first glance, that the sum of all events across human civilization's twelve-thousand year odd history can be recounted on less paper than the 63-year-long lifetime of United States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt seems grossly disproportionate.
Yet if the reader of this grand epic accepts Black's opinion that FDR was not merely the restorer of America from the economic and psychological vagaries of the Depression - remaking the state apparatus in the process - but the absolute saviour of Western civilization against the mortal threats posed by a barbarous Nazi Germany and imperial Japan during the Second World War, its easy to justify the book’s length.
In Champion of Freedom, Black unearths the intimate details of Roosevelt’s personal and public life against the backdrop of the epochal events of the first half of the twentieth century.
Once into his presidency, Black retraces FDR’s New Deal platform throughout the 1930s. He incisively recounts the stages of the FDR administration’s magnanimous agenda, crediting the president and various members of his staff for virtually invented America’s welfare system from scratch.
He captures in detail the skillful – in his words “feline” – dexterity FDR possessed in masterfully navigating through domestic politics. All the while guiding American foreign policy through the country’s most tumultuous times since the Civil War.
The dense wording and complexity of some of the more detailed elements of the book are challenging to be sure. However, on balance, Black manages to capture and illuminate the incredible significance of FDR's impact on America and the world.
Roosevelt's peer and friend Winston Churchill eulogized in 1945 that there is born only one man of FDR's caliber and ability in a generation. However, it's difficult to contend that there will ever again exist a figure at such a critical time in history who commanded such prescient determination and sufficient resources to make the world a better place as FDR did.
In Champion of Freedom, Black unearths the intimate details of Roosevelt’s personal and public life against the backdrop of the epochal events of the first half of the twentieth century.
Once into his presidency, Black retraces FDR’s New Deal platform throughout the 1930s. He incisively recounts the stages of the FDR administration’s magnanimous agenda, crediting the president and various members of his staff for virtually invented America’s welfare system from scratch.
He captures in detail the skillful – in his words “feline” – dexterity FDR possessed in masterfully navigating through domestic politics. All the while guiding American foreign policy through the country’s most tumultuous times since the Civil War.
The dense wording and complexity of some of the more detailed elements of the book are challenging to be sure. However, on balance, Black manages to capture and illuminate the incredible significance of FDR's impact on America and the world.
Roosevelt's peer and friend Winston Churchill eulogized in 1945 that there is born only one man of FDR's caliber and ability in a generation. However, it's difficult to contend that there will ever again exist a figure at such a critical time in history who commanded such prescient determination and sufficient resources to make the world a better place as FDR did.
His leadership in such difficult times was and remains awe-inspiring.
With this realization, it's little wonder why Black may have found it difficult to put his pen down.
-JS-
With this realization, it's little wonder why Black may have found it difficult to put his pen down.
-JS-
To reach a port, we must sail - sail, not tie at anchor - sail, not drift. - FDR
