FDR Biographer Breaks No New Ground But Does It So Well
It's unrealistic to hope that new books on Abraham Lincoln and George Washington are going to yield much that is new, but authors keep writing about them because people never seem to tire reading their stories. Another such is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While Publishers Weekly concedes that author Jean Edward Smith "breaks no 'news' and offers no previously undisclosed revelations," it holds that his new biography, titled simply FDR, is "a joy to read," and attaching that overworked label "magisterial."
In its review of the book, The New Yorker notes that Smith "doesn’t flinch at Roosevelt’s mistakes; the sections on the court-packing scheme and the internment of Japanese-Americans are painful to read. Smith also does a fine job with a complex marriage, avoiding the F.D.R. biographer’s trap of being either annoyed or enraptured by Eleanor. The Roosevelt who emerges here—neither a stranger nor a painted icon—is flawed and magnificent."
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