Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
by H.W. Brands
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List Price: $35.00
Our Price: $14.85
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Manufacturer: Doubleday
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.917092
EAN: 9780385519588
ISBN: 0385519583
Label: Doubleday
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 896
Publication Date: 2008-11-04
Publisher: Doubleday
Release Date: 2008-11-04
Studio: Doubleday
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Traitor to His Class
Comment: I purchased this book as a Christmas gift for my husband. He has been reading this gift since that day. His opinion is that it is very informative and interesting and will recommend it to anyone.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Is it necessary?
Comment: I'm not sure if we another book on FDR. No new ground is truly broken here, though it is always enjoyable to read about out greatest president.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "A politician, not an ideologue"
Comment: The literature about Franklin Delano Roosevelt is enormous, rivaling in sheer bulk that on Napoleon, Lincoln and Jesus Christ.
Many of us can remember when any new book about FDR came with a built-in partisan agenda of either fulsome praise or furious denunciation. Many of those books came from people who had known and worked with Roosevelt. Only in fairly recent years have we reached the point where dispassionate historians can have their say, free from the whirring sound of grinding axes.
H. W. Brands, a history professor at the University of Texas, has weighed in with a richly detailed and well-written 824-page biography that rates high marks among the many single-volume treatments still in print. His basic verdict is favorable, but he is careful to note FDR's failings, both personal and political. TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS is neither whitewash nor prosecutorial indictment.
Roosevelt's well-known career trajectory is covered in workmanlike detail: New York state senator and later governor, assistant secretary of the navy, losing candidate for vice president in 1920, polio victim, and finally the only person in American history elected four times to the Presidency. The equally familiar details of his private life are also present: his difficult relationship with a domineering mother, his essentially loveless marriage to his cousin Eleanor (complicated, if more complication were needed, by his affair with Lucy Mercer), his wily political machinations in pursuit of self-advancement, his intense personal loyalty to trusted aides like Louis Howe and Harry Hopkins, and his careful manipulation of wartime relations with Churchill and Stalin, who may have been allies against the Nazis but were also leaders with agendas that did not always jibe with Roosevelt's wishes.
Brands teases out of the historical record ample detail about Roosevelt's well-known tactic of putting two or three people to work on the same problem independently, so he could cherry-pick ideas from each and decide on his own approach. The author also illuminates FDR's ability to give petitioners the impression that he agreed with them while not really making any specific commitments to action. Brands deftly crafts a neutral way to describe this, dubbing FDR "artful" in preserving his "intellectual autonomy." He was, says Brands, "a politician, not an ideologue."
The wide-ranging array of New Deal programs with which he fought against the Depression were, in Brands's phrase "extemporaneous and improvisatory," which seems a fair judgment. Some of them worked and some of them did not --- the most ill-advised being his effort to pack the Supreme Court with justices more in tune with his program after the Court had invalidated a large part of the New Deal as unconstitutional.
Brands also reminds us of Roosevelt's constant need to protect himself against the powerful isolationist bloc in Congress, which opposed his every move toward war preparations right up to the moment of Pearl Harbor. FDR lacked the luxuries of Churchill's "unity government" or Stalin's iron-fisted dictatorship. Even today there are those who still claim that FDR knew about the Pearl Harbor attack in advance but let it happen as a means of getting the U.S. into World War II --- a claim that Brands dismisses as unfounded. He also quotes Roosevelt's candid assessment of the 1945 Yalta agreements with Stalin, a longtime focal point of conservative ire (and charges of treason). Roosevelt reported to Congress that they were "the best I could do," which is pretty close to the verdict commonly accepted today.
When Roosevelt was gearing up to run for the Presidency in 1932, columnist Walter Lippmann famously dismissed him as "a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President." This may well have been accurate --- but Brands, after an exhaustive examination of the record of FDR's 12-year Presidency, concludes that he rose brilliantly to the challenge.
Can it be that history may repeat itself 76 years later? Stay tuned.
--- Reviewed by Robert Finn (Robertfinn@aol.com)
Customer Rating:
Summary: This Settles It- Brands Is Great
Comment: Iv'e always been a little doubtful as to whether H.W.Brands is a great popular historian. The guy is a writing machine and his work touches every era of American history. However, Traitor to His Class resolves the issue. Not only is it the best biography of FDR, it is a better history of the depression and WWII than many acclaimed books in those fields. Some historians can't help but treat each event separately; Brands' treatment has a wholistic feel that never lets you forget the urgency of the sick economy or the rapacity of the Axis. The emphasis he imparts to various episodes strike me as both well measured and well said. There are no new insights, but there are observations from characters not usually quoted and excerpts from FDR speeches rarely heard.
This book is especially revealing at this point in time. As I write, the economy is retracting, a depression is feared and the Bush administration is fumbling its recessitation. Much of the current political commentary is a rehash from Herbert Hoover's time. Brands' book makes you realize how far starboard this nation has drifted in the last 40 years and how little we have learned from the past.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and very timely history
Comment: Seldom does one find an 800-page history text to be a "page turner", but this is such a book. Brands is a superb biographer; he organizes and tells the story of the first half of the 20th century in an absolutely fascinating way. One cannot help but recognize how little people and politics have changed -- the same greed and corruption among politicians and Wall Street, the same theme of conservative versus progressive politics and of government once again coming to the rescue of free-market capitalism. The similarities to the current economic and political situation require careful consideration by the reader.
Put this together with Behrman's "The Most Noble Adventure" regarding the Marshall Plan and you follow many of the same players into the next generation. Both books are written so well as to read like novels.
A great gift for anyone interested in history and/or politics.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Traitor to His Class
Comment: I purchased this book as a Christmas gift for my husband. He has been reading this gift since that day. His opinion is that it is very informative and interesting and will recommend it to anyone.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Is it necessary?
Comment: I'm not sure if we another book on FDR. No new ground is truly broken here, though it is always enjoyable to read about out greatest president.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "A politician, not an ideologue"
Comment: The literature about Franklin Delano Roosevelt is enormous, rivaling in sheer bulk that on Napoleon, Lincoln and Jesus Christ.
Many of us can remember when any new book about FDR came with a built-in partisan agenda of either fulsome praise or furious denunciation. Many of those books came from people who had known and worked with Roosevelt. Only in fairly recent years have we reached the point where dispassionate historians can have their say, free from the whirring sound of grinding axes.
H. W. Brands, a history professor at the University of Texas, has weighed in with a richly detailed and well-written 824-page biography that rates high marks among the many single-volume treatments still in print. His basic verdict is favorable, but he is careful to note FDR's failings, both personal and political. TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS is neither whitewash nor prosecutorial indictment.
Roosevelt's well-known career trajectory is covered in workmanlike detail: New York state senator and later governor, assistant secretary of the navy, losing candidate for vice president in 1920, polio victim, and finally the only person in American history elected four times to the Presidency. The equally familiar details of his private life are also present: his difficult relationship with a domineering mother, his essentially loveless marriage to his cousin Eleanor (complicated, if more complication were needed, by his affair with Lucy Mercer), his wily political machinations in pursuit of self-advancement, his intense personal loyalty to trusted aides like Louis Howe and Harry Hopkins, and his careful manipulation of wartime relations with Churchill and Stalin, who may have been allies against the Nazis but were also leaders with agendas that did not always jibe with Roosevelt's wishes.
Brands teases out of the historical record ample detail about Roosevelt's well-known tactic of putting two or three people to work on the same problem independently, so he could cherry-pick ideas from each and decide on his own approach. The author also illuminates FDR's ability to give petitioners the impression that he agreed with them while not really making any specific commitments to action. Brands deftly crafts a neutral way to describe this, dubbing FDR "artful" in preserving his "intellectual autonomy." He was, says Brands, "a politician, not an ideologue."
The wide-ranging array of New Deal programs with which he fought against the Depression were, in Brands's phrase "extemporaneous and improvisatory," which seems a fair judgment. Some of them worked and some of them did not --- the most ill-advised being his effort to pack the Supreme Court with justices more in tune with his program after the Court had invalidated a large part of the New Deal as unconstitutional.
Brands also reminds us of Roosevelt's constant need to protect himself against the powerful isolationist bloc in Congress, which opposed his every move toward war preparations right up to the moment of Pearl Harbor. FDR lacked the luxuries of Churchill's "unity government" or Stalin's iron-fisted dictatorship. Even today there are those who still claim that FDR knew about the Pearl Harbor attack in advance but let it happen as a means of getting the U.S. into World War II --- a claim that Brands dismisses as unfounded. He also quotes Roosevelt's candid assessment of the 1945 Yalta agreements with Stalin, a longtime focal point of conservative ire (and charges of treason). Roosevelt reported to Congress that they were "the best I could do," which is pretty close to the verdict commonly accepted today.
When Roosevelt was gearing up to run for the Presidency in 1932, columnist Walter Lippmann famously dismissed him as "a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President." This may well have been accurate --- but Brands, after an exhaustive examination of the record of FDR's 12-year Presidency, concludes that he rose brilliantly to the challenge.
Can it be that history may repeat itself 76 years later? Stay tuned.
--- Reviewed by Robert Finn (Robertfinn@aol.com)
Customer Rating:
Summary: This Settles It- Brands Is Great
Comment: Iv'e always been a little doubtful as to whether H.W.Brands is a great popular historian. The guy is a writing machine and his work touches every era of American history. However, Traitor to His Class resolves the issue. Not only is it the best biography of FDR, it is a better history of the depression and WWII than many acclaimed books in those fields. Some historians can't help but treat each event separately; Brands' treatment has a wholistic feel that never lets you forget the urgency of the sick economy or the rapacity of the Axis. The emphasis he imparts to various episodes strike me as both well measured and well said. There are no new insights, but there are observations from characters not usually quoted and excerpts from FDR speeches rarely heard.
This book is especially revealing at this point in time. As I write, the economy is retracting, a depression is feared and the Bush administration is fumbling its recessitation. Much of the current political commentary is a rehash from Herbert Hoover's time. Brands' book makes you realize how far starboard this nation has drifted in the last 40 years and how little we have learned from the past.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and very timely history
Comment: Seldom does one find an 800-page history text to be a "page turner", but this is such a book. Brands is a superb biographer; he organizes and tells the story of the first half of the 20th century in an absolutely fascinating way. One cannot help but recognize how little people and politics have changed -- the same greed and corruption among politicians and Wall Street, the same theme of conservative versus progressive politics and of government once again coming to the rescue of free-market capitalism. The similarities to the current economic and political situation require careful consideration by the reader.
Put this together with Behrman's "The Most Noble Adventure" regarding the Marshall Plan and you follow many of the same players into the next generation. Both books are written so well as to read like novels.
A great gift for anyone interested in history and/or politics.
A sweeping, magisterial biography of the man generally considered the greatest president of the twentieth century, admired by Democrats and Republicans alike. Traitor to His Class sheds new light on FDR's formative years, his remarkable willingness to champion the concerns of the poor and disenfranchised, his combination of political genius, firm leadership, and matchless diplomacy in saving democracy in America during the Great Depression and the American cause of freedom in World War II.
Drawing on archival materials, public speeches, personal correspondence, and accounts by family and close associates, acclaimed bestselling historian and biographer H. W. Brands offers a compelling and intimate portrait of Roosevelt’s life and career.
Brands explores the powerful influence of FDR’s dominating mother and the often tense and always unusual partnership between FDR and his wife, Eleanor, and her indispensable contributions to his presidency. Most of all, the book traces in breathtaking detail FDR’s revolutionary efforts with his New Deal legislation to transform the American political economy in order to save it, his forceful—and cagey—leadership before and during World War II, and his lasting legacy in creating the foundations of the postwar international order.
Traitor to His Class brilliantly captures the qualities that have made FDR a beloved figure to millions of Americans. Exclusive Amazon.com Q&A with H.W. Brands and Jon Meacham On the eve of the historic 2008 presidential election, we were fortunate to chat with historians H.W. Brands and Jon Meacham (author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House) on the similarities of their presidential subjects and how the legacies of FDR and Jackson continue to shape the political world we see today. Amazon.com: One of Andrew Jackson's childhood friends once remarked that when they wrestled, "I could throw him three times out of four, but he never stayed throwed." How emblematic is this of Jackson's career? Meacham: Utterly emblematic. Jackson was resilient, tough, and wily, rising from nothing to become the dominant political figure of the age. He was crushed by his loss in 1824, when, despite carrying the popular vote, he was defeated in the House of Representatives. But, tellingly, he began his campaign for 1828 almost immediately, on the way home to Tennessee. And he won the next time. Amazon.com: What would Jackson think of Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Meacham: I think they would have gotten along famously. It is difficult to imagine men from more starkly different backgrounds—to take just one example, Jackson lost his mother early, and FDR was long shaped by his mother—but they both viewed the presidency the same way: they both believed they should be in it, wielding power on behalf of the masses against entrenched interests. Amazon.com: How important was Jackson's legacy to FDR's Presidency? Brands: Jackson was FDR’s favorite president, and Jackson’s presidency was the one Roosevelt initially modeled his own after. FDR saw Jackson as the champion of the ordinary people of America; he saw himself the same way. He compared Jackson’s battle with the Bank of the United States to his own battle with entrenched economic interests. And just as Jackson had reveled in the enmity of the rich, so did Roosevelt. Amazon.com: Although both were regarded as champions of the people, their backgrounds were drastically different. FDR hailed from a wealthy and politically-connected family, while Jackson was an orphaned son of immigrants. How did each manage to endear themselves to the voters of their day? Meacham: Jackson was in many ways the first great popular candidate. He had “Hickory Clubs,” and there were torchlit parades and barbecues—lots and lots of barbecues. Jackson helped mastermind the means of campaigning that would become commonplace. He also intuitively understood the power of image, and kept a portrait painter, Ralph Earl, near to hand in the White House. Brands: FDR combined noblesse oblige with felt concern for the plight of the poor. His polio had something to do with this—it introduced him to personal suffering, and it also introduced him, in Georgia, where he went for rehabilitation, to poor farmers unlike any he had spent time with before. He came to know them and to feel the problems they faced. He took people in trouble seriously and communicated that seriousness to them. Continue reading this Q&A
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