An entertaining and eye-opening biography of America?s most memorable first daughterFrom the moment Teddy Roosevelt?s outrageous and charming teenage daughter strode into the White House?carrying a snake and dangling a cigarette?the outspoken Alice began to put her imprint on the whole of the twentieth-century political scene. Her barbed tongue was as infamous as her scandalous personal life; but whenever she talked; powerful people listened; and she reigned for eight decades as the social doyenne in a town where socializing was state business. Historian Stacy Cordery?s unprecedented access to personal papers and family archives enlivens and informs this richly entertaining portrait of America?s most memorable first daughter and one of the most influential women in twentieth-century American society and politics.
#614584 in Books 2008-05-27 2008-05-27Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.44 x 1.47 x 5.50l; 1.36 #File Name: 0143113720672 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. What if.By exurbaniteIan Kershaw; the British historian renowned for his authoritative biography of Adolph Hitler has; in Fateful Choices; widened his scope. He reexamines the critical decisions made in 1940 and 1941 by the major participants in World War II and asks what might have happened had they been made differently. “What if†is; of course; hardly a rare question asked by historians; amateur and professional. It is an integral part of the game. “What if Halifax rather than Churchill had been chosen wartime Prime Minister?â€. “What if Hitler had stuck with his plan to invade Britain rather than turning on the Soviet Union instead?â€. “What if Mussolini had not foolishly decided to invade Greece?â€. “What if the paranoid Stalin had not purged his Red Army leadership in 1939 and then; in early 1940 acted on; rather than ignoring; multiple intelligence reports of an imminent German invasion?†“What if the Japanese had decided to invade Siberia rather than Indochina and attacking Pearl Harbor?. “What if Roosevelt had acted more decisively in support of Britain in 1940 and 1941?†Kershaw examines these and dozens of related questions in great detail over the course of almost 500 pages. The speculation makes for entertaining reading despite a fair amount of repetition. At the end; as is so often the case in the game of “What if?â€; he concludes that the personalities of the key players and the circumstances under which they operated; made the decisions reached inevitable. In a brief “Afterthoughts†chapter at the end of the book he concedes that “what if scenarios†are “a harmless but pointless diversion from the real question of what happened and why.†His preceding chapters; he suggests “have shown in each case why … alternatives were ruled outâ€. So much; then; for all the “what ifsâ€.12 of 12 people found the following review helpful. An interesting thesisBy 1.According to Ian Kershaw the main decisons made by the Axis and Allied powers were not planned in advance but improvised as battlefield successes and failures changed. This book needs to be read alongside Hew Strachan's new book about Clausewitz's "On War;" because according to Strachan's interpretation of Clausewitz; tactical successes or failures ulitimately shape strategy. This was seen in Kershaw's view of why Hitler choose to attack the Soviet Union. Kershaw states that Hitler attacked the Soviet Union because he could not defeat Britain during the Battle of Britain; and by overthrowing the Soviet regime maybe the English would plead for a settlement. Meanwhile the Japanese attacked the United States due to the German victories in Europe and their own defeat to the Soviet Union in 1939. The Japanese military successes in Asia persuaded Hitler to declare war against the United States because he thought that the Americans would be too distracted in the Far East. Kershaw disagrees with the think tank strategist of the fifties and sixties who believed that democracy hindered the decision making process. Mussolini;Hitler;and the Japanese military leaders led their nations to defeat because they failed to hear conflicting advice. But Churchill had a unified front because he had the support of the cabinet and Roosevelt's sensitivity towards public opinion prevented him from making any rash decisions that were detrimental to the Allied effort. The only weakness of this book is that in his section about Stalin; Kersahaw ignored traditional Russian and later Soviet suspicions of England; that made Stalin ignore British intelligence warnings that Hitler was going to attack the Soviet Union. Also Kershaw does not write about how Hitler's strategic decisions reflected his Austrian upringing as mentioned by Martin Van Creveld.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. excellent overview of the warBy David TookeKershaw is one of the best of our WW II historians -- for me; he writes at just the right level of detail and sophistication; without losing sight of the big issues. And you learn a lot -- he clamly disposes of many of the tropes of received wisdom on "grand strategy" issues; political ones and (the area I am least capable of judging) military ones.
