Franklin and Winston - Jon Meacham

Franklin and Winston

By Jon Meacham

  • Release Date: 2003-10-14
  • Genre: U.S. History
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 118 Ratings

Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “beautifully written and superbly researched dual biography” (Los Angeles Times Book Review), Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham “paints a powerful portrait of the enormous friendship between World War II allies [Franklin] Roosevelt and [Winston] Churchill” (Vanity Fair).
 
“Intense and compelling reading.”—The Washington Post

Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of “the Greatest Generation.” In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II. 

Born in the nineteenth century and molders of the twentieth and twenty-first, Roosevelt and Churchill had much in common. In their own time both men were underestimated, dismissed as arrogant, and faced skeptics in their own nations—yet both magnificently rose to the central challenges of the twentieth century. Theirs was a kind of love story, with an emotional Churchill courting an elusive Roosevelt. The British prime minister, who rallied his nation in its darkest hour, standing alone against Adolf Hitler, was always somewhat insecure about his place in FDR’s affections—which was the way Roosevelt wanted it. A man of secrets, FDR liked to keep people off balance, including his wife, Eleanor, his White House aides—and Winston Churchill.

Meacham’s sources—including unpublished letters of FDR’ s great secret love, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, the papers of Pamela Churchill Harriman, and interviews with people who were in FDR and Churchill’s joint company—shed light on the characters of both men as he engagingly chronicles the hours in which they decided the course of the struggle.

Charting the personal drama behind the discussions of strategy and statecraft, Meacham has written the definitive account of the most remarkable friendship of the modern age.

Reviews

  • Franklin and Winston

    5
    By Jon Meacham
    French phrases should always be translated and shown in brackets as was done in The Last Lion. Suggest you adopt this as a policy in your publications. R. Ronald Calkins, Indianapolis.
  • History on a personal level

    4
    By DDundon
    Franklin and Winston is a wonderful attempt to tell the story of WWII through the eyes of two men and their wives. It's interesting to learn how much the two men at once had great affection for one another and other times were engaged in deceit and deception. One comes away with the feeling that had two different men been in these powerful positions at the time the outcome of the war could have been quite different.

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