Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume 2 , The Defining Years, 1933-1938

Description

The central volume in the definitive biography of America s most important First Lady. "Engrossing" (Boston Globe).

Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume Three, 1938-1962, will be published in November. Volume Two covers tumultuous era of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the gathering storms of World War II, the years of the Roosevelts greatest challenges and finest achievements. In her remarkably engaging narrative, Cook gives us the complete Eleanor Roosevelt— an adventurous, romantic woman, a devoted wife and mother, and a visionary policymaker and social activist who often took unpopular stands, counter to her husband s policies, especially on issues such as racial justice and women s rights. A biography of scholarship and daring, it is a book for all readers of American history.With its gripping tale of a privileged ugly duckling turned socially conscious swan with the help of strong female friends--many of whom were lesbians and one of whom was probably her lover--the first volume of Blanche Wiesen Cook s biography of Eleanor Roosevelt won awards and made headlines. That book followed its subject from her birth in 1884 through her husband Franklin s election to the presidency in 1933. Volume 2, which chronicles Roosevelt s first six years as America s most controversial first lady (Hillary Clinton doesn t even come close), maps her contributions to the New Deal, which Cook convincingly argues was primarily the fulfillment of a political agenda promoted by female reformers as early as 1912. Eleanor s turbulent relationship with journalist Lorena Hickok gets more space here than it probably deserves, and the story isn t as inherently exciting as the first volume s drama of a woman s coming of age. Nonetheless, Cook s subtle analyses of everything from Roosevelt s exceedingly complex marriage to her role as warm-up act for the New Deal s most radical programs are bracingly intelligent, her evocation of a remarkable personality rivetingly vivid. Eleanor emerges as neither the liberals saint nor the conservatives Satan, but an entirely human bundle of contradictions: warm-hearted, yet ice-cold when hurt; happiest in the public arena, yet needing the comfort of private relationships. --Wendy Smith