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Writing an adequate biography of any one of the "three Roosevelts" --- they
were Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor, in case anyone has any doubts --- would be a
difficult enough task; but, like a ballplayer trying to hit for the cycle or a racehorse
going for the triple crown, authors James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn have tried in
this hefty volume to profile all three of them between one set of covers. The result may
not be totally satisfactory as narrative history, but it makes for a darned good read
anyway.
Part of the problem is simple chronology. Theodore Roosevelt died in 1919, long before
Franklin or Eleanor had become truly national figures; thus he more or less disappears
from the book about a quarter of the way through. And Franklin Roosevelt for obvious
reasons dominates the rest of the text, despite the two authors' game efforts to give his
remarkable wife equal billing. Thus, the book, for all its virtues, has a kind of
loose-jointed structure. And of course, Burns and Dunn are plowing yet again an already
well-plowed historical field, one worked tirelessly by some of the finest historians of
our time. The names Kenneth S. Davis, Frank Freidel, Joseph Lash, Arthur M. Schlesinger,
Geoffrey Ward, Peter Collier, and even Burns himself in his previous books, are only the
beginning of a long list.
So what have Burns and Dunn brought to this familiar subject that is new? There are no
startling revelations or daring reinterpretations of history here, but there are some
fascinating assessments of why these three activists did what they did, where they came
from in terms of family background, and the influence they had on their country over an
entire century. All three were interested not just in changing things, but in sweeping,
long-lasting "transformational change" --- and they largely succeeded in
bringing it about, MacGregor and Dunn insist. The tone is overwhelmingly favorable; the
reader can almost sense the authors casting about for topics on which adverse criticism
can be hung as a matter of balance (one such is the slowness of both FDR's and Eleanor's
reaction to knowledge of Hitler's campaign against the Jews).
Even when sounding themes fully covered by other authors, MacGregor and Dunn manage to
make their case in unhackneyed terms and with convincing evidence. They are eloquent on
the revolt of both FDR and his wife against the moral vacuity of the privileged classes
into which they were born, on FDR's erratic and improvisational style of political
leadership, on the implacable hatred they both earned (and welcomed) from the wealthy, and
on the adoration they earned (and also welcomed) from the poor.
Theodore Roosevelt they characterize as a "principled, feisty President," FDR as
a master strategist and manipulator who felt he had to mask his true intentions in order
to achieve ends to which his political foes were opposed. Mercifully, Burns and Dunn do
not waste space on the crackpot conspiracy theories that still surround things like Pearl
Harbor and the 1945 Yalta Conference. They even take a kinder view than most other
historians of FDR's failed campaign against the Supreme Court in 1935-36, and they dispute
the widely held theory that FDR was an enfeebled and ineffective President after his 1944
fourth-term victory.
The tone toward Eleanor is largely worshipful, though it is only in the last 75 pages or
so --- after FDR's death --- that she is able to take center stage for herself. She is
lauded for her work on behalf of women and blacks, but gently chided for her backing of
Adlai Stevenson over the Presidential ambitions of John F. Kennedy.
The book is brightly written and soundly researched. By the very nature of its
three-headed subject it suffers from sprawl and lack of focus, but it shows on every page
the master hands of two experienced and expert historians.
--- Reviewed by Robert Finn (Robertfinn@aol.com)
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