false 332978 0743246012 9780743246019 290 88 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173828555m/332978.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/332978.The_Defining_Moment_FDR_s_Hundred_Days_and_the_Triumph_of_Hope 191014 Jonathan Alter 311 96 5 1 false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 07:25:46 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 07:33:17 -0800 2009
And it is a fantastic book. The author brings alive FDR as if we were living in the 1930s. From his personal history to his strenghts and weaknesses, and I really feel like I got to know President Roosevelt through Alter's writing.

I basked in the background info there is here about The New Deal, and the history and circumstances of Social Security, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the CCC, etc. The book really only deals with the Roosevelt up until his 100th day as President. WWWII and all of FDR's later career are just brushed over in the epilogue. This book deals with the time when people begged Roosevelt to become a dictator and he was refusing, as opposed to a decade later when everyone was screaming at him for having become a dictator, and he had not.

I come away from this book both realizing that I don't like FDR all that much personally, at the same time as I am feeling new appreciation of him as one of our greatest Presidents. A debt of gratitude to the deep research and sound writing by the author for that.]]>