Since Mr. Joseph P. Lash was a good friend of, and co-worker with, Eleanor, then this biography should and does quite naturally deals with her, and, "Team Eleanor". However, it does start out with the focus on both Eleanor and Franklin, where "Team Franklin" is first assembled as he commences his New York State Senatorship, just prior to World War One, then puts him more on the side, commencing with Franklin's acceptance of the Assistant Secretaryship of the Navy, the Lucy Mercer Affair, then seems to make a more or less complete break, after Franklin suffers the attack of his Paralytic Illness.
And as this book explains, it gives you a picture of how Eleanor evolved and thrived, firmly outside of her husband's shadow. Thereafter, FDR pretty much remains a cypher. Nevertheless, as much as I was clamoring for more about him, one could still yet get some good clues about what makes Franklin tick, however remotely. Mr. Lash as a "lad", worked intimately with, and accomplished quite a lot alongside Eleanor, in the Two or Three years run-up to World War Two, mainly dealing with the issues affecting American Youth, but since this book was written under old-fashioned protocols ("Manual of Style"), he leaves himself mostly out of it, except for their reunion for Eleanor's grand South Pacific Tour of Theatre Operations of 1944, when he was serving as an Army Sergeant.
Perhaps some of you out there, may suggest some biographies of Franklin (with the MAIN focus upon him), that are more "first-person" oriented, where the biographer--or--auto-biographer manages to insert you firmly within the subject's skin? The only alternative--not a book--is viewing the Ken Burns series about the Roosevelt Dynasties. And that went into quite some detail, about what an inspirational and beloved leader, that "Doc Rosie" was, overseeing the early years of his Warm Springs sanitarium.
For contrast, in dealing with Abraham Lincoln, I found Sandberg's Lincoln biography of him, to successfully accomplish that for me, and Sandberg had to have done that, using Abe's own short Autobiography as a blueprint, written during the period of his run-up for his Presidency. The mark of a fine biography, IS the use of this "First-Person-Insertion" as I've described. For about the first 100 or so pages dealing with these Two, after the "Polio" (Many of today's Physicians and their specialists now argue for OTHER causes of Franklin's Paralytic Illness.) attack, I WAS disappointed, until I realized that this book's mission was to always focus on Eleanor, and then the book got easy-going after that, and what a WONDERFUL & WARM woman she turned out to be; you will still yet sufficient detail about FDR, to fill in those blanks, too. I do not know what this world would have done without these Two's sojourn on this planet. Had America lost World War Two, one-half of this nation would have had the swastika flag flying over it, while the other half would have been flying the rising sun. What would we have done without Franklin's leadership?? And this, coming from me, where my philosophical instincts are more "traditional", more conservative. I can see well beyond the usual knee-jerk Neanderthal accusations of these Two, as having been full-on Communists, doing the Kremlin's bidding. Those canards simply are not true.
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Got here in time, My Grandma loves it but advice for next time to the seller, put bubble wrap or put it in a tight package to wear the book doesn't tear or get dammaged because when it came today the bag was torn open and all kids of dirt was in the book and in the bag. But overall its a good book.
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