If only we had Franklin Roosevelt with us now. This story is much different from The Translator, my first exposure to Crowley. Much is made up in the novel--a family industrial dynasty, a Utopian city on the plains where the world's biggest war plane is under construction, and wonderful characters all deeply involved in America's progress in the war and in civil society.

I had to look up Roosevelt's Four Freedoms since I pulled only two from within the narrative. They are contained in a speech of that title which he delivered to Congress January 6, 1941. The speech is brave and inspiring. You can find it at http://www.smericnrhetoric.com/speech... He even makes an eloquent case for higher taxes according to people's ability to pay. But here are the four which Roosevelt maintained are essential freedoms for the world, not just the United States:

1. Freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.
2. Freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.
3. Freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants --everywhere in the world.
4. Freedom from fear......such that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.

But I'm a bit sidetracked. This is a story of how those left behind in war--women, the handicapped, the old, minorities-- all did their part for the war effort. At the same time, through their work, they prepared the ground for the great social reforms which came about in the decades after world war II.

Prosper, the main character, was crippled for life in a botched surgery that was meant to help him. He serves as the sounding board for the rest of the novel's characters and often as a sympathetic lover.