No Ordinary Time; Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II

New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, 1994. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Richard Goodwin (Author photograph). 759, [7] pages. Illustrations. DJ is price clipped. Signed on the front free endpaper by the author, Doris Kearns Goodwin. Includes Preface and Afterword, as well as A Note on Sources, Notes, Bibliography, Acknowledgments, and Index. Chapters cover "The Decisive Hour Has Come"; "A Few Nice Boys with BB Guns"; "Back to the Hudson"; Living Here Is Very Oppressive"; "No Ordinary Time"; I Am a Juggler"; "I Can't Do Anything About Her"; "Arsenal of Democracy"; "Business As Usual"; "A Great Hour to Live"; "A Completely Changed World"; "Two Little Boys Playing Soldier"; "What Can We Do to Help?"; By God, If It Ain't Old Frank!"; "We Are Striking Back"; The Greatest Man I Have Ever Known"; It Is Blood on Your Hands'; "It Was a Sight I Will Never Forget''; "I Want to Sleep and Sleep"; "Suspended in Space"; "The Old Master Still Had It"; "So Darned Busy"; "It Is Good to Be Home"; "Everybody Is Crying"; and "A New Country Is Being Born". Doris Helen Kearns Goodwin (born January 4, 1943) is an American biographer, historian, former sports journalist and political commentator. Goodwin has written biographies of several U.S. presidents, including Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream; The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga; Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln; and The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. Goodwin's book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995. Doris Kearns Goodwin writes a brilliant narrative account of how the United States of 1940, an isolationist country divided along class lines, still suffering the ravages of a decade-long depression and woefully unprepared for war, was unified by a common threat and by the extraordinary leadership of Franklin Roosevelt to become, only five years later, the preeminent economic and military power in the world. At the center of the country's transformation was the complex partnership of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. While Franklin manned the war room at the White House and held meetings with Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Mackenzie King, and other world leaders to discuss strategy for the war abroad, Eleanor crisscrossed the country, visiting the American people, seeing how the war and policies her husband made in Washington affected them as individuals. Goodwin relates the unique story of how Franklin Roosevelt, surrounded by his small circle of intimates, led the nation to military victory abroad against seemingly insurmountable odds and, with Eleanor's essential help, forever changed the fabric of American society. Derived from a Kirkus review: A superb dual portrait of the 32nd President and his First Lady, whose extraordinary partnership steered the nation through the perilous WW II years. In the period covered by this biography, 1940 through Franklin's death in 1949, FDR was elected to unprecedented third and fourth terms and nudged the country away from isolationism into war. It is by now a given that Eleanor was not only an indispensable adviser to this ebullient, masterful statesman, but a political force in her own right. More than most recent historians, however, Goodwin is uncommonly sensitive to their complex relationship's shifting undercurrents,. One element creating tension was tactical politics: FDR, seeing increased arms production as crucial to the war effort, sought to close the divide between businessmen and his administration, while Eleanor prodded him not to forget about labor, civil rights, and Jewish refugees. As grateful as he was to her for acting as his political eyes and ears, Franklin also could react testily to her unremitting lobbying at times when he desperately needed relief from the strains of running the war effort. Equally fascinating here are the often semi-permanent White House guests who filled the couple's "untended needs": their daughter and four sons; FDR alter ego Harry Hopkins, shaking off grave illness to go on critical diplomatic missions; Franklin's secretary Missy LeHand, prevented by a stroke from serving the man she loved; exiled Princess Martha of Norway, who gave Franklin the unqualified affection of which Eleanor was incapable; two of Eleanor's confidantes, future biographer Joe Lash and the ex-journalist Lorena Hickok; and Winston Churchill. A moving drama of patchwork intimacy in the White House, played out against the sweeping tableau of the nation rallying behind a great crusade.