Mr. Book just finished The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days And Triumph Of Hope, by Jonathan Alter.
Instead of looking at Roosevelt’s Hundred Days as the start of the story of FDR’s presidency, as all other accounts day, the author took a different approach here and viewed it as the culmination of the story of the winter of 1932-33.
Things were so bad before Roosevelt took office that economic John Maynard Keynes was asked whether there was any historical precedent for this collapse in the world’s economy. He said there was: it lasted 400 years and was called the Dark Ages. Early in his administration, a visitor to the White House told him, “Mr. President, if your program succeeds, you’ll be the greatest president in American history. If it fails, you will the worst one.” FDR replied, “If it fails, I’ll be the last one.” And, given how other democracies were collapsing around the world, this was not hyperbole.
It took a little while for the book to get up to the winter of 1932-33 period. But, none of that felt like just mere introductory material. Instead, it was very enjoyable and never made me ask when are we getting to the heart of the book. Among the highlights of this portion was the book was the discussion of how polio affected Roosevelt’s political fortunes and a big highlight was the discussion of the 1932 convention.
One of the great things about history books is all of the little hidden gems of facts that they contain. For example, I had not realized that, during the 1932 election campaign, there was a rumor being spread that Roosevelt was deathly ill that the campaign had to silence. Another good example is Eleanor crying the night of the election saying “Now I will have no identity. I’ll only be the wife of the president.”
The book did a great job covering the transition period, discussing both putting the staff together the assassination attempt.
Ironically, if this outstanding book could be said to have a weakest element, it would be the Hundred Days period. The book was not as strong in that area as it was in the others. But, I will be the first to admit that I have a double standard when it comes to books not living up to the expectations when you look at the title. If the book is good enough, I don’t care. If the book wasn’t good enough, then not being enough about the title is nothing I would hold against it.
This is definitely a case of the former. Rather than it being a book on the Hundred Days, it’s really just a very overall book on FDR. It is not in the category of the best books on FDR, which if it was, it would be getting an A+. But, it was good enough and enjoyable enough to earn itself an A.
Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads.
There is no way of knowing when Mr. Book originally read this one. It is down in my records as an original reading on “January 1, 1901”, when is my code for I had originally read it prior to me keeping track of this. But, we do know that he just finished rereading on August 20, 2024.
