ebooks The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials by Marion L. Starkey in History

Description

A New York Times 2016 Notable Book“By far the most enigmatic leading figure” of World War II. That’s how the British military historian John Keegan described Franklin D. Roosevelt; who frequently left his contemporaries guessing; never more so than at the end of his life. Here; in a hugely insightful account; a prizewinning author and journalist untangles the narrative threads of Roosevelt’s final months; showing how he juggled the strategic; political; and personal choices he faced as the war; his presidency; and his life raced in tandem to their climax. The story has been told piecemeal but never like this; with a close focus on Roosevelt himself and his hopes for a stable international order after the war; and how these led him into a prolonged courtship of Joseph Stalin; the Soviet dictator; involving secret; arduous journeys to Tehran and the Crimea. In between; as the war entered its final phase; came the thunderbolt of a dire medical diagnosis; raising urgent questions about the ability of the longest-serving president to stand for a fourth term at a time when he had little choice. Neither his family nor top figures in his administration were informed of his diagnosis; let alone the public or his closest ally; Winston Churchill. With D-Day looming; Roosevelt took a month off on a plantation in the south where he was examined daily by a navy cardiologist; then waited two more months before finally announcing; on the eve of his party’s convention; that he’d be a candidate. A political grand master still; he manipulated the selection of a new running mate; with an eye to a possible succession; displaying some of his old vigor and wit in a winning campaign. With precision and compassion; Joseph Lelyveld examines the choices Roosevelt faced; shining new light on his state of mind; preoccupations; and motives; both as leader of the wartime alliance and in his personal life. Confronting his own mortality; Roosevelt operated in the belief that he had a duty to see the war through to the end; telling himself he could always resign if he found he couldn’t carry on. Lelyveld delivers an incisive portrait of this deliberately inscrutable man; a consummate leader to the very last.