Becoming FDR

Becoming FDR PDF Author: Jonathan Darman
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812978781
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
“An illuminating account of how Franklin D. Roosevelt’s struggles with polio steeled him for the great struggles of the Depression and of World War II.”—Jon Meacham “A valuable book for anyone who wants to know how adversity shapes character. By understanding how FDR became a deeper and more empathetic person, we can nurture those traits in ourselves and learn from the challenges we all face.”—Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo Da Vinci In popular memory, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the quintessential political “natural.” Born in 1882 to a wealthy, influential family and blessed with an abundance of charm and charisma, he seemed destined for high office. Yet for all his gifts, the young Roosevelt nonetheless lacked depth, empathy, and an ability to think strategically. Those qualities, so essential to his success as president, were skills he acquired during his seven-year journey through illness and recovery. Becoming FDR traces the riveting story of the struggle that forged Roosevelt’s character and political ascent. Soon after contracting polio in 1921 at the age of thirty-nine, the former failed vice-presidential candidate was left paralyzed from the waist down. He spent much of the next decade trying to rehabilitate his body and adapt to the stark new reality of his life. By the time he reemerged on the national stage in 1928 as the Democratic candidate for governor of New York, his character and his abilities had been transformed. He had become compassionate and shrewd by necessity, tailoring his speeches to inspire listeners and to reach them through a new medium—radio. Suffering cemented his bond with those he once famously called “the forgotten man.” Most crucially, he had discovered how to find hope in a seemingly hopeless situation—a skill that he employed to motivate Americans through the Great Depression and World War II. The polio years were transformative, too, for the marriage of Franklin and Eleanor, and for Eleanor herself, who became, at first reluctantly, her husband's surrogate at public events, and who grew to become a political and humanitarian force in her own right. Tracing the physical, political, and personal evolution of the iconic president, Becoming FDR shows how adversity can lead to greatness, and to the power to remake the world.

Becoming FDR

Becoming FDR PDF Author: Jonathan Darman
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812978781
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Get Book Here

Book Description
“An illuminating account of how Franklin D. Roosevelt’s struggles with polio steeled him for the great struggles of the Depression and of World War II.”—Jon Meacham “A valuable book for anyone who wants to know how adversity shapes character. By understanding how FDR became a deeper and more empathetic person, we can nurture those traits in ourselves and learn from the challenges we all face.”—Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo Da Vinci In popular memory, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the quintessential political “natural.” Born in 1882 to a wealthy, influential family and blessed with an abundance of charm and charisma, he seemed destined for high office. Yet for all his gifts, the young Roosevelt nonetheless lacked depth, empathy, and an ability to think strategically. Those qualities, so essential to his success as president, were skills he acquired during his seven-year journey through illness and recovery. Becoming FDR traces the riveting story of the struggle that forged Roosevelt’s character and political ascent. Soon after contracting polio in 1921 at the age of thirty-nine, the former failed vice-presidential candidate was left paralyzed from the waist down. He spent much of the next decade trying to rehabilitate his body and adapt to the stark new reality of his life. By the time he reemerged on the national stage in 1928 as the Democratic candidate for governor of New York, his character and his abilities had been transformed. He had become compassionate and shrewd by necessity, tailoring his speeches to inspire listeners and to reach them through a new medium—radio. Suffering cemented his bond with those he once famously called “the forgotten man.” Most crucially, he had discovered how to find hope in a seemingly hopeless situation—a skill that he employed to motivate Americans through the Great Depression and World War II. The polio years were transformative, too, for the marriage of Franklin and Eleanor, and for Eleanor herself, who became, at first reluctantly, her husband's surrogate at public events, and who grew to become a political and humanitarian force in her own right. Tracing the physical, political, and personal evolution of the iconic president, Becoming FDR shows how adversity can lead to greatness, and to the power to remake the world.

The Man He Became

The Man He Became PDF Author: James Tobin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451698674
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Here, from James Tobin, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography, is the story of the greatest comeback in American political history, a saga long buried in half-truth, distortion, and myth—Franklin Roosevelt’s ten-year climb from paralysis to the White House. In 1921, at the age of thirty-nine, Roosevelt was the brightest young star in the Democratic Party. One day he was racing his children around their summer home. Two days later he could not stand up. Hopes of a quick recovery faded fast. “He’s through,” said allies and enemies alike. Even his family and close friends misjudged their man, as they and the nation would learn in time. With a painstaking reexamination of original documents, James Tobin uncovers the twisted chain of accidents that left FDR paralyzed; he reveals how polio recast Roosevelt’s fateful partnership with his wife, Eleanor; and he shows that FDR’s true victory was not over paralysis but over the ancient stigma attached to the disabled. Tobin also explodes the conventional wisdom of recent years—that FDR deceived the public about his condition. In fact, Roosevelt and his chief aide, Louis Howe, understood that only by displaying himself as a man who had come back from a knockout punch could FDR erase the perception that had followed him from childhood—that he was a pampered, too smooth pretty boy without the strength to lead the nation. As Tobin persuasively argues, FDR became president less in spite of polio than because of polio. The Man He Became affirms that true character emerges only in crisis and that in the shaping of this great American leader character was all.

The Defining Moment

The Defining Moment PDF Author: Jonathan Alter
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743246012
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
In this dramatic and authoritative account, the author shows how Franklin Delano Roosevelt used his famous "fear itself" speech and the first 100 days in office to lift the country from despair and paralysis and transform the American presidency.

No Ordinary Time

No Ordinary Time PDF Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439126194
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 790

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Book Description
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic about the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, and how it shaped the nation while steering it through the Great Depression and the outset of World War II. With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin masterfully weaves together a striking number of story lines—Eleanor and Franklin’s marriage and remarkable partnership, Eleanor’s life as First Lady, and FDR’s White House and its impact on America as well as on a world at war. Goodwin effectively melds these details and stories into an unforgettable and intimate portrait of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and of the time during which a new, modern America was born.

FDR

FDR PDF Author: Jean Edward Smith
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812970497
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 914

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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "A model presidential biography... Now, at last, we have a biography that is right for the man" - Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World One of today’s premier biographers has written a modern, comprehensive, indeed ultimate book on the epic life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In this superlative volume, Jean Edward Smith combines contemporary scholarship and a broad range of primary source material to provide an engrossing narrative of one of America’s greatest presidents. This is a portrait painted in broad strokes and fine details. We see how Roosevelt’ s restless energy, fierce intellect, personal magnetism, and ability to project effortless grace permitted him to master countless challenges throughout his life. Smith recounts FDR’s battles with polio and physical disability, and how these experiences helped forge the resolve that FDR used to surmount the economic turmoil of the Great Depression and the wartime threat of totalitarianism. Here also is FDR’s private life depicted with unprecedented candor and nuance, with close attention paid to the four women who molded his personality and helped to inform his worldview: His mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, formidable yet ever supportive and tender; his wife, Eleanor, whose counsel and affection were instrumental to FDR’s public and individual achievements; Lucy Mercer, the great romantic love of FDR’s life; and Missy LeHand, FDR’s longtime secretary, companion, and confidante, whose adoration of her boss was practically limitless. Smith also tackles head-on and in-depth the numerous failures and miscues of Roosevelt’ s public career, including his disastrous attempt to reconstruct the Judiciary; the shameful internment of Japanese-Americans; and Roosevelt’s occasionally self-defeating Executive overreach. Additionally, Smith offers a sensitive and balanced assessment of Roosevelt’s response to the Holocaust, noting its breakthroughs and shortcomings. Summing up Roosevelt’s legacy, Jean Smith declares that FDR, more than any other individual, changed the relationship between the American people and their government. It was Roosevelt who revolutionized the art of campaigning and used the burgeoning mass media to garner public support and allay fears. But more important, Smith gives us the clearest picture yet of how this quintessential Knickerbocker aristocrat, a man who never had to depend on a paycheck, became the common man’s president. The result is a powerful account that adds fresh perspectives and draws profound conclusions about a man whose story is widely known but far less well understood. Written for the general reader and scholars alike, FDR is a stunning biography in every way worthy of its subject.

Master of His Fate

Master of His Fate PDF Author: James Tobin
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (BYR)
ISBN: 1627793313
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Master of His Fate by James Tobin is an inspiring middle-grade biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with a focus on his battle with polio and how his disease set him on the course to become president. In 1921, FDR contracted polio. Just as he began to set his sights on the New York governorship—and, with great hope, the presidency—FDR became paralyzed from the waist down. FDR faced a radical choice: give up politics or reenter the arena with a disability, something never seen before. With the help of Eleanor and close friends, Roosevelt made valiant strides toward rehabilitation and became even more focused on becoming president, proving that misfortune sometimes turns out to be a portal to unexpected opportunities and rewards—even to greatness. This groundbreaking political biography richly weaves together medicine, disability narratives, and presidential history. Christy Ottaviano Books

Summary of Jonathan Darman's Becoming FDR

Summary of Jonathan Darman's Becoming FDR PDF Author: Everest Media,
Publisher: Everest Media LLC
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 In 1920, Franklin Roosevelt contracted a mysterious illness that left him bedridden for two weeks. His body felt like an occupied territory, subject to cruel and unpredictable intervals of excruciating pain. #2 In 1920, Franklin Roosevelt contracted a mysterious illness that left him bedridden for two weeks. His body felt like an occupied territory, subject to cruel and unpredictable intervals of excruciating pain. #3 On August 25, 1921, FDR contracted a mysterious illness that left him bedridden for two weeks. His body felt like an occupied territory, subject to cruel and unpredictable intervals of excruciating pain. The doctors diagnosed him with infantile paralysis. #4 In 1920, FDR contracted a mysterious illness that left him bedridden for two weeks. His body felt like an occupied territory, subject to cruel and unpredictable intervals of excruciating pain. The doctors diagnosed him with infantile paralysis, which was later renamed polio.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt PDF Author: Robert Dallek
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241315859
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 946

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Book Description
From the acclaimed author of John F. Kennedy: An Unfinished Life, the biography of one of America's greatest presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the only American president ever to serve four terms. He came from the highest echelons of American society, and though progressively incapacitated by polio from the age of thirty-nine, never showed the slightest self-pity, refusing to allow the disease to constrain his ambition or his place in public life. During the Depression of the 1930s he became the foremost presidential champion of the needy, instituted the famous New Deal and brought about revolutionary changes in America's social and political institutions. Two years into the Second World War he persuaded Americans that it was their unavoidable duty to fight, and brought about a profound reversal in the country's foreign policy. During that titanic conflict he formed a unique friendship with Winston Churchill, and became the central figure in the Western Alliance. Dallek attributes FDR's success to two remarkable political insights. First, more than any other president, he understood that effectiveness in American politics depended on building a national consensus and commanding stable long-term popular support. Second, he made the presidency the central, most influential institution in modern America's political system. In addressing the country's international and domestic problems, Roosevelt recognized the vital importance of remaining closely attentive to the full range of public sentiment around the decisions made by government-perhaps his most enduring lesson in effective leadership. In an era of national and international division, there could be no more timely biography of America's preeminent twentieth-century leader than one that demonstrates his unparalleled ability as a uniter and consensus maker.

FDR's Shadow

FDR's Shadow PDF Author: Julie M. Fenster
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0230103413
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A brilliant look at how the indomitable and enlightened Louis Howe became the mega-advisor of the Roosevelt Clan.

FDR's Splendid Deception

FDR's Splendid Deception PDF Author: Hugh Gregory Gallagher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
FDR's Splendid Deception is an intensely personal view of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This truly remarkable biography of SBR has been widely acclaimed by reviewers and historians alike as a new look at a complex inner Roosevelt. Revised and updated, this moving story of FBR's massive disability -- and the intense efforts to conceal it from the public -- has been widely acknowledged as revising the understanding of Roosevelt's personality and decision-making process. Completely apolitical, the book offers a unique, intimate, and compassionate reappraisal of America's most successful disabled person -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was a paraplegic polio who could not stand without braces nor walk without skilled assistance. Yet he was elected president of the United States four times. The public knew that FDR was lame from polio, but they were never told of the true extent of his disability. No press photo was ever published of the president in a wheelchair or in any situation that emphasized his paralysis. Likewise, the Secret Service saw to it that the president was never allowed to appear crippled in public. To a certain extent the public preferred not to see the degree of his handicap, and Roosevelt refused to admit even to himself the extent of his disability. This was FDR's "splendid deception." - Jacket flap.