The New Dealers' War - by Thomas Fleming (Paperback)

About the Book

An acclaimed historian brings to life a flawed and troubled FDR struggling to manage World War II, taking the reader through the fractious conflicts and debates that went on in Washington, the nation, and the world as the New Dealers strove to impose their will on the conduct of the War. Photos.

Book Synopsis

Acclaimed historian Thomas Fleming brings to life the flawed and troubled FDR who struggled to manage WWII. Starting with the leak to the press of Roosevelt's famous Rainbow Plan, then spiraling back to FDR's inept prewar diplomacy with Japan, and his various attempts to lure Japan into an attack on the U.S. Fleet in the Pacific, Fleming takes the reader inside the incredibly fractious struggles and debates that went on in Washington, the nation, and the world as the New Dealers, led by FDR, strove to impose their will on the conduct of the War. Unlike the familiar yet idealized FDR of Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time, the reader encounters a Roosevelt in remorseless decline, battered by ideological forces and primitive hatreds which he could not handle-and frequently failed to understand-some of them leading to unimaginable catastrophe. Among FDR's most dismaying policies, Fleming argues, were an insistence on "unconditional surrender" for Germany (a policy that perhaps prolonged the war by as many as two years, leaving millions more dead) and his often uncritical embrace of and acquiescence to Stalin and the Soviets as an ally. For many Americans, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is a beloved, heroic, almost mythic figure, if not for the "big government" that was spawned under his New Deal, then certainly for his leadership through the War. The New Dealers' War paints a very different portrait of this leadership. It is sure to spark debate.

Review Quotes

"A revisionist blockbuster by a real historian who has an old-fashioned concern with what actually happened in the past, with causes and effects."

"It would be a gross understatement to call The New Dealers' War a revisionist history of World War II. Thomas Fleming has...entered the Roosevelt Wing of the American Pantheon with a sledgehammer and reduced it to shambles."

"Sure to be the most controversial history book of the year.... A scathing commentary that will have partisans howling in protest."

Praise for The New Dealers' War: "A gripping, controversial, informative, and at times infuriating look at FDR's leadership as the nation entered and fought World War II."

About the Author

Thomas Fleming, a distinguished historian and author of more than fifty books, was a frequent guest on PBS, A&E, and the History Channel. He also contributed articles to American Heritage, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, and many other magazines.