Franklin D. Roosevelt

Road to the New Deal, 1882-1939

Roger Daniels

Narrated by James Romick

Available from Audible

Book published by University of Illinois Press

Franklin D. Roosevelt, consensus choice as one of three great presidents, led the American people through the two major crises of modern times. The first volume of an epic two-part biography, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 1882-1939 presents FDR from a privileged Hyde Park childhood through his leadership in the Great Depression to the ominous buildup to global war.

Roger Daniels revisits the sources and closely examines Roosevelt's own words and deeds to create a twenty-first-century analysis of how Roosevelt forged the modern presidency. Daniels's close analysis yields new insights into the expansion of Roosevelt's economic views; FDR's steady mastery of the complexities of federal administrative practices and possibilities; the ways the press and presidential handlers treated questions surrounding his health; and his genius for channeling the lessons learned from an unprecedented collection of scholars and experts into bold political action.

Revelatory and nuanced, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 1882-1939 reappraises the rise of a political titan and his impact on the country he remade.

Roger Daniels is the Charles Phelps Taft Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Cincinnati. His many books include Prisoners without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II.

REVIEWS:

“A vigorous, thorough examination of the New Deal programs, pinpointing Franklin Roosevelt’s successes and failures and much improvisation.... Finely delineated history, authoritative and skillfully fashioned.”

—Kirkus Reviews.

“This outstanding study is essential reading for anyone who really wants to know and understand Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. There is massive research, an extensive bibliography, and a profound understanding of the times. Essential. ”

—Choice

“Well organized, well researched, and well written... Daniels does a wonderful job of engaging with the ongoing historiography of the time period.”

—H-Net Reviews

“Carefully researched and provides an uncommonly complete contextual analysis for virtually all of the president's public utterances, and thus for his political strategy.”

—Indiana Magazine of History

“An impressively researched project that will appeal to scholars of Roosevelt and the New Deal.... Daniels provides an exhaustive legislative history of the era while adding richness and complexity to Roosevelt's public life.”

—Journal of Southern History

“An unparalleled portrait. Written with verve, refreshingly free of jargon, and deftly weaving acute analysis into clear narrative, it manages both to tell the remarkable story of the most influential president since Lincoln while conducting an ongoing conversation with historians and biographers who have come before.”

—Max Paul Friedman, author of Rethinking Anti-Americanism: The History of an Exceptional Concept in American Foreign Relations