The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II

(Paperback)

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"A gripping, controversial, informative and at times infuriating look at FDR's leadership as the nation entered and fought World War II...Both revisionist and controversial. " Washington Post. Acclaimed historian Thomas Fleming brings to life a flawed and troubled FDR struggling to manage World War II. 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 US Fleet in the Pacific, Fleming takes the reader on a journey through the incredibly fractious struggles 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. In bold contrast to the familiar, idealized FDR of other biographies, Fleming's Roosevelt is a man in remorseless decline, battered by ideological forces and primitive hatreds that he could not handleand frequently failed to understandsome of them leading to unimaginable catastrophe. Among FDR's most dismaying policies, Fleming argues, is his insistence on "unconditional surrender" for Germany (a policy that perhaps prolonged the war by as much as two years, leaving millions more dead) and his often-uncritical embrace of and acquiescence to Stalin and the Soviets as an ally. The New Dealers' War is one of those rare books that force readers to rethink what they think they know about a pivotal event in the American past.

Reviews

"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."

Author Bio

Thomas Fleming is the author of more than forty books, including The New Dealers' War, Duel, and Liberty! The American Revolution, as well as best-selling novels about America's war experience such as Time and Tide and The Officers' Wives. Fleming is a frequent guest on and contributor to NPR, PBS, A&E, and the History Channel. He lives in New York City and Westbrook, Connecticut.