Essays

Larry DeWitt: Review of Alan Brinkley ’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Oxford University Press, 2010)

by Larry DeWitt
February 4, 2010

This book review was originally published on the online History News Network on February 4, 2010

This is a surprisingly slight book, especially for a biography of Franklin Roosevelt, whose biographies tend to approach four-digit page lengths. This slim little volume (in a 5” x 8” format) contains fewer than 100 pages (99 to be exact), yet it aspires to survey the entirety of Roosevelt’s life and career. Although I suppose one cannot help but be impressed by a book whose entire table of contents consists of only four entries: Preface; Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Notes; Bibliography.

Slight or not, one might well think that Brinkley has some explaining to do: we might expect some justification for yet another biography of our 32nd president. In a fleeting stroke of understatement, Brinkley says only: “There is no lack of biographies of Roosevelt. At least four have been published in the last five years alone.”{1} Well yes, and so why a fifth? Brinkley does not say. By the way, I can count at least 15 biographies of FDR published in the last year-and-a-half alone, to join the untold number still in print, plus at least three more that have appeared since he penned his Preface in June of 2009 (not all of them in Brinkley’s league, to be sure, and not all of them comprehensive.) His publisher, Oxford University Press, claims it as “the only short biography of FDR on the market” and advises booksellers that: “This title will appeal to individuals with an interest in general and American History, as well as those wishing to compare the achievements of FDR and Obama during their first years in office.” Egad. One can only hope that no actual reader will attempt to use this book in such a puerile way.

The book consists of only a single chapter, subdivided into topical “chapterlets.” There is a two-page intro and a two-page conclusion; sandwiched in between are overviews of: FDR’s early personal life and his marriage to Eleanor; his early career during the Wilson administration; his polio; his emergence in New York state politics; his presidential campaign; the New Deal (three “chapterlets”); World War II (also three “chapterlets”); Roosevelt and Churchill; a section on African Americans, the internments and the problem Jewish refugees (2 pages); and the third-term and his death. All the usual suspects have been rounded up.

There is nothing here that isn’t already well-known to most historians; although some readers may find a few tidbits that they hadn’t known, or had forgotten. I hadn’t known, for example, that while serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson that FDR had some role in a covert Navy sting operation designed to ferret out and arrest homosexuals who were cruising in the area around the Newport, Rhode Island naval base. I also didn’t know that the Philadelphia Eagles football team was named the “Eagles” during the New Deal in honor of the blue-eagle symbol of the National Recovery Administration. (That tidbit of history might well frost the noses of some of the Philly fans in the stands at Lincoln Financial Field!)

But the chief value of this latest biography of FDR is not that it tells us something new, but mainly that it tells the broad-brush story of FDR’s era in a brief and accessible way. Alan Brinkley is without question a master historian, and one who knows this period (the New Deal) as well as any. His writing is always insightful and deeply informed. But readers accustomed to the kind of complex policy history that one finds in his The End of Reform, or the kind of rich political and intellectual history one finds in his Liberalism and its Discontents, or even the colorful portraiture of interesting political actors and social history one finds in his Voices of Protest, will discover a very different genre being exercised here. Frankly, the book looks and reads more like the publication of an honorary lecture given on some suitable academic occasion.

If there is an overarching theme to Brinkley’s biography, he states it in his second paragraph:
“So powerful was his impact on the world he led through the twentieth century’s darkest years that the literal truth of his life often seemed less important than the powerful image he created . . . Even decades later, public figures across the ideological spectrum try to seize a piece of his legacy—even at times to justify efforts to dismantle it—without much concern about who Roosevelt was or what he actually did. He has become a figure of myth: a man for all seasons, all parties, and all ideologies.”{2}

If the aim of Brinkley’s biography is to demythologize FDR, to paint him as a human being—even if with short strokes in fleeting colors—I am not sure he has entirely succeeded. Certainly he manages to mention FDR’s many flaws and failed efforts along with his many virtues and achievements. But the problem is that this is not really a biography, it is more of an introductory survey of the Roosevelt era in American history. Brinkley uses FDR’s life and career as the narrative thread to trace this era, but his eye is not so much on FDR the man, as the New Deal the era. So it really is not a colorful portrait of FDR as a person, sufficient in detail and vividness to “demythologize” him. This being so, I suspect the most appropriate use for the book is probably as a supplemental assigned text in the survey course on “The United States 1920-1945.”

In such a brief book, abridgement is the order of the day, and some oversimplification seems inevitable. But surely things go too far once or twice in this quick fly-by of sixty or so years of history. Here, for example, is Brinkley’s account of Roosevelt at Yalta: “In January 1945, with victory in Europe apparently imminent, Roosevelt traveled secretly to Yalta on the Crimean coast for another meeting with Churchill and Stalin. Both men were shocked at the president’s wasted physical appearance. But Roosevelt participated actively and capably in the negotiations.”{3} Does not that sentence: “But Roosevelt participated actively and capably in the negotiations” glide over some serious historiographical controversy—a controversy in which Brinkley has taken sides without alerting the casual reader that he is doing so?

I also think his treatment of the World War II internments is too brief to be entirely satisfactory. He says:

“In 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the president approved a proposal from military officials on the West Coast to ‘intern’ the thousands of resident Japanese Americans living in California. . . . Many of them were born in the United States, and other were naturalized citizens. . . . Thousands of families were transferred from their homes to internment camps located mostly in the deserts, and many were not released until 1944.”{4}

Close, but not quite right. Persons of Japanese ancestry (not just “Japanese Americans” who were citizens) were relocated from the two coasts and from southern Arizona (not just California). About 58% of the relocated Japanese were citizens and the remaining 42% were resident aliens. While most Japanese were interned, others were relocated to inland states; and those of Japanese ancestry who were not living in the “restricted areas” of the two coasts or the southern Arizona border were not relocated or interned. Moreover, releases from internment began even before the relocation and internment process was completed in the summer of 1942. Also one regrets that brevity precludes mention that a smaller number of resident aliens of Italian and German ancestry were also interned during the war under similar circumstances.{5}   

But these are mostly quibbles—the sort of thing reviewers are inclined to, under the general heading of “those who cannot do, review.”

Quite the strongest section of the book is his survey of the New Deal period—as one might expect from such a renowned expert on that topic. Nearly a third of the book is devoted to this topic (another third to the War years, and the remaining third to everything else). The two longer sections are clearly the best part of the book.

Although his publisher claims for Brinkley’s book a unique primacy (“the only short biography of FDR”) there are other biographies of FDR, even fairly brief ones. Brinkley’s friend, the late Arthur Schlesinger Jr., might well have taken offense at this publisher’s boast, as he edited the volume on FDR for the American Presidents Series, a volume written by Roy Jenkins, with an assist from Richard Neustadt. The whole purpose of the American Presidents Series is to provide brief biographies of each of the presidents. While Jenkins’ biography is almost twice as long as Brinkley’s, that still qualifies as “brief” in this context. Where Jenkins’ book is strongest (its descriptive power and focus on the personal dramas of politics) Brinkley’s is weakest; and where Brinkley is strong (his dispassionate overview of policy) Jenkins is weak. I am not sure I could advise reading one without the other.

Despite my quibbles, this is a fine little book, provided that one has a clear understanding of just what it is and what it is not. It is not a satisfying biography of FDR. It is a useful overview of FDR’s era in American political history. And a new book by Alan Brinkley—even one as unexpected and seemingly unneeded as this one—is always a good reason for a quick trip down to one’s local Barnes and Noble.