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gilda_elise
Here, from James Tobin, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography, is the story of the greatest comeback in American political history, a saga long buried in half-truth, distortion, and myth—Franklin Roosevelt’s ten-year climb from paralysis to the White House.
In 1921, at the age of thirty-nine, Roosevelt was the brightest young star in the Democratic Party. One day he was racing his children around their summer home. Two days later he could not stand up. Hopes of a quick recovery faded fast. “He’s through,” said allies and enemies alike. Even his family and close friends misjudged their man, as they and the nation would learn in time.
With a painstaking reexamination of original documents, James Tobin uncovers the twisted chain of accidents that left FDR paralyzed; he reveals how polio recast Roosevelt’s fateful partnership with his wife, Eleanor; and he shows that FDR’s true victory was not over paralysis but over the ancient stigma attached to the disabled. Tobin also explodes the conventional wisdom of recent years—that FDR deceived the public about his condition. In fact, Roosevelt and his chief aide, Louis Howe, understood that only by displaying himself as a man who had come back from a knockout punch could FDR erase the perception that had followed him from childhood—that he was a pampered, too smooth pretty boy without the strength to lead the nation. As Tobin persuasively argues, FDR became president less in spite of polio than because of polio.
The Man He Became affirms that true character emerges only in crisis and that in the shaping of this great American leader character was all.
A clear, concise retelling of FDR’s battle with polio, and how it affected his career in politics. It puts to rest the myth that he hid his disability; rather, you get the very real sense that the general public knew that he had contracted polio, and that it had affected his ability to walk. But though he could not walk without the aid of canes and braces, he was more than capable of taking on the duties of president. Though his fight against the disease, his unrelenting effort to rebuild his life, probably made him that much better a president.
While little in the book was new to me, it’s an excellent place to start for anyone just beginning to learn about the man. What was new was the light shone on how polio changed, not him, but people’s impression of him, and how very lucky we were that it did. He wasn’t a coddled mama’s boy who could not face adversary. The strength he showed in combating the disease had always been there. He would use that same fortitude in the years ahead. He never gave up, leading the country through the Depression and WWII with strength and grace.
Links are to more information regarding each book, not to the review.
1. Alexander's Lovers
2. The Border
3. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
4. Green Darkness
5. The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone
6. Rise to Rebellion
7. Return to Sodom and Gomorrah
8. Through a Glass Darkly
9. Lisey's Story
10. The Man He Became
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Date: 2016-04-19 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-20 10:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-19 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-20 11:01 am (UTC)And you're welcome!
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Date: 2016-04-19 11:04 pm (UTC)I should read this book for Job 2 - shall have to look out for it!
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Date: 2016-04-20 11:03 am (UTC)The book is an easy read, so, if you can, I think you should pick up a copy. :-)
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Date: 2016-04-19 11:33 pm (UTC)Did the author ever touch on photographers not taking pictures of FDR while walking with his braces or being lifted into his car? I know that the American public generally knew about his polio but rarely saw pictures. He did put the spotlight on the March of Dimes and ran a spa for polio treatment in Warm Springs, Georgia.
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Date: 2016-04-20 11:09 am (UTC)The author did mention that there weren't a lot of pictures of FDR in those circumstances, but he does include one where FDR is being helped to walk by one of his aides, and one where he's being helped out of the car, so they did exist. The author blames a lot of the spread of the myth that FDR hid his disability on the fight over how to show FDR at his memorial (which is a wonderful place!)
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Date: 2016-04-20 01:43 pm (UTC)That makes sense. Do we show FDR in a wheelchair or standing at the memorial? An interesting question.
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Date: 2016-04-20 09:54 pm (UTC)That makes sense. Do we show FDR in a wheelchair or standing at the memorial? An interesting question.
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Date: 2016-04-21 10:41 am (UTC)According to the author, Roosevelt rarely stayed in the wheelchair. He'd use it to get from one place to the other at home, but then would move into a regular chair.
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Date: 2016-04-20 08:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-20 11:11 am (UTC)