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

H.W. Brands's admiration of FDR as a human being and as a politician is scarcely concealed. Here's his summary encomium from the last chapter of his biography, describing the reaction of Americans to the President's death: "[His presidency] had been a remarkable accomplishment, reflecting a unique bond between the President and the American people. They put their faith in Roosevelt because he put his faith in them. He believed in democracy -- in the capacity of ordinary Americans, exercising their collective judgement, to address the ills of that afflicted their society. He refused to rely on the invisible hand of the marketplace, for the compelling reason that during his lifetime the invisible hand had wreaked very visible havoc on millions of unoffending Americans. He refused to accept that government invariably bungled whatever it attempted, and his refusal inspired government efforts that had a tremendous positive effect on millions of marginal farmers, furloughed workers, and struggling merchants..." If that encomium seems more rhetorical than analytical to you, you're not alone. This journalistic biography is best at portraying personalities and personality clashes, and weakest at historical contextualization.In attempting to be moderately detached, Brands details FDR's weaknesses, frivolities, and errors -- his overweening ambition, his marital cruelties and follies, his manipulative relationships with friends -- but the overall picture is extremely engaging. It's easy to see how Roosevelt overcame both his advantages and disadvantages to become the master politician and popular icon that he undeniably was. The narrative breaks rather schematically into three sections: Roosevelt's youth and political activities before 1932, his two terms of office during the Depression, and his wartime years. Of the three 'acts,' the first is the most carefully constructed and the clearest in intention. Brands depict FDR as the product of extraordinary privilege and insulation from the lives of ordinary folk. At the same time, he links Roosevelt's development to the example of his predecessor and relative, Theodore, demonstrating fairly convincingly that FDR's economic and social platform derived more from Progressivism than from any ideology of the Democratic Party. It was his illness and paralysis, Brands argues, that brought FDR into contact with and empathy for the less-privileged Americans, and that forged his strengths as a leader in crises.Brands's focus during FDR's first two terms in the White House is on his political challenges -- his dealings with his own party and with Congress; his relationships with his aides and advisors, and the occasional rivalries between those aides; his election strategies, etc. Brands keeps all these juggling pins aloft with some skill, but unfortunately I was hoping for a different kind of analysis of these years, more in fulfillment of the iimplications of the book's title. Brands is at his most shallow in placing the "New Deal" in the context of American social history. Alas, that's what I was looking for, a coherent summary of the very real and very permanent changes in American society than accompanied the New Deal, with some answer to such questions as: 1. What was new about the Deal? 2. Whose Deal was it really? 3. How much did the New Deal embody Roosevelt's own vision? Brands portrays FDR's confrontations with Labor leader John L Lewis, for instance, entirely in terms of personalities and passing events, but the changes in labor relations and labor law during the New Deal years were among the most important developments of the era, and the underlying question is to what degree can those changes be considered accomplishments of Roosevelt's "betrayal" of his class. America arrived at the end of World War I still maintaining the class assumptions of common law master-servant relationships, but by the 1930s America was no longer a land of apprentices, master craftsmen, and yeoman farmers. Instead it was a nation of wage earners, and it was FDR's great opportunity to shape new perceptions and new laws to suit such new realities. That's what the NRA was about - not merely market recovery - and that's what FDR's confrontation with the 'nine old men' of the Supreme Court amounted to. The victories that FDR achieved with his liberal appointment to the Court, victories which were partly consolidated by his third electoral triumph and by the democratizing effect of his plans for benefits for returning soldiers, were in effect a "new and better" deal for ordinary Americans. Frankly, too much attention has been paid to the 'recovery' issues of the New Deal -- particularly with 75% or more of Americans keeping their jobs and doing rather well on the basis of price deflation -- and too little to the transformation of America from the hierarchical Gilded Age portrayed by novelists like Edith Wharton and Henry James to the bland but prosperous and egalitarian America post WW2.Brands establishes in his prologue, where he foreshadows the trauma of Pearl Harbor, that his deepest adulation of Roosevelt is reserved for his war leadership. Once again, the narrative focuses on interpersonal confrontations, chiefly between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, and to a lesser degree between Roosevelt and his generals. Oddly enough, however, by the time Brands gets to his chosen topic, his writing has become less cogent and carefully ordered. Many of the severest critics of this book, and by implication of Roosevelt himself as a war leader, are dismayed by the portrayal of Roosevelt's amiability toward Stalin. The critics howl that Roosevelt was naive, or that he was secretly sympathetic to communism, and that Brands should have revealed that ideological 'treachery.' What Brands does reveal is that Roosevelt had every bit as much trouble with Churchill's motivations as with Stalin's. Honestly, whether you side with those who denounce FDR's policies toward the USSR, or with those who applaud his wartime leadership, you won't find much to support your bias in this entertaining but superficial biography.

Generally, biography books show more about the author than the historical character that is the subject of the book. In this book there is nothing different: the author seems to be more sympathetic to the Democratic party than to the GOP in the USA, highlighting the best side of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and minimizing his worst side. But the author also shows, with approximate realism, the social benefits of the New Deal as a government program to alleviate poverty resulting from the mass unemployment of the poorest in the 1930s, due to the stock market crash of 1929, but omits some important aspects to evaluate FDR as a man: 1) how he faced the tycoons (probably the most responsible for the crisis) in the USA at the beginning of his "socialist" government (a positive point); 2) how he handled the information about the Katyn Forest criminal massacre during World War II, so as not to expose allies in the war (a negative point); and 3) his point of view on the Manhattan Project, which would change military and political power relations in the world forever. In fact, merits are due to the author for highlighting the political role of Eleanor Roosevelt in supporting her husband in the Presidency and her greatness as a woman while a betrayed wife. Finally, the book presents a biography that does not seem neutral, but willing to extol the merits of one of the most controversial presidents in the political history of the USA, revealling that he was a sincere admirer of Joseph Stalin, a President who contributed to the recovery of the greatest economic crisis of the country, but also to the increase in the distrust of "good guys" in the democratic politics around the world.

FDR wasn’t perfect, he often pushed through his point of view before the American public eventually got on board. But he cared deeply about Democracy, and thought that all Americans could come together to form a more perfect union. This is a phenomenal story about FDR and his fight against two shattering events in US history, the Great Depression and WW2.I’ve often thought of Presidents as requiring prior military service to understand the weight of their decisions, but FDR shows that civilian oversight may sometimes be the best outcome.

Interesting book about - his years as President during the depression and WW II.

Traitor to his Class by H.W. Brands is a very good biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who without question was one of America's greatest Presidents. It is well-written, informative, opinionated and detailed.The author comprehensively chronicles not just the political but also the personal story of FDR, the man who reshaped American society, reinvigorated her economy and affirmed the United States position as the leader of the free world.Overall, this is a first class biography of arguably the most influential President of the twentieth century.

Go go Alabama!

his book is a one volume biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's life. It is a good read, and covers all of FDR's life, from birth to death. For those who have multiple books on FDR, there isn't anything new here, but it is still an enjoyable, and interesting read.Of the FDR biographies I have read, I would argue that Roger Daniel's was more detailed, being two volumes, but this book is just as good, because (maybe unintentionally) it is trying to argue that, contrary to the title, FDR was a deliberately "Goldilocks" president, and not be too radical, or "wide eyed crazy" to get himself through the White House door, while being radical enough to effect real change. This is in contrast to today's Democratic "Squad", who I sometimes feel prioritise intellectual purity over getting things done.All in all, this is a good book, and if you're looking for a straightforward forward FDR biography, this is a good place to start. My grumbles would be that FDR's radicalness didn't seem all that radical till it was pointed out at the end, at which pointed he seemed more like a successful Tony Benn (a British politician with a similar background, and similar urges to change society).Another other grumble would be that a good chunk of the Roosevelt money came from the fact that one of FDR's forebears was effectively a Chinese drug dealer. This is brushed of as being legal at the time. It was, but only because British, and French "gunboat diplomacy" had made it so.My final grumble would be that given its title, I assumed it would be almost entirely (or at least predominantly) about his presidency. That it wasn't seemed a little odd, given the time.This said, it is still, a good, and interesting read. It will explain FDR clearly to the reader.

This is a masterly review of Roosevelt and his times. He was indeed "a traitor to his class". His plans for his next spell as President included the real possibility that Americans should have universal medical care, a progressive venture still not nearly achieved nearly 70 years on. His vision and humanity are sorely missed in today's USA.