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Title: masterful account; mistitled
Review: This is not so much a study of FDR as of his senior people, with the character sketches of Eisenhower, Nimitz, King, and Arnold-- and especially Marshall-- being the most rewarding. His judgment is consistently fair and he offers an excellent, if incomplete, history of the grand strategy of the two major theaters, in addition to elucidating some the practical dilemmas facing FDR and his team in building and supplying a vast war machine, almost from scratch. Learn too how FDR used the New Deal to build two aircraft carriers and almost by dictat order the re-creation of an air force on the verge of war. FDR's judgments in personnel decisions (aside perhaps from his machiavellian relationship with MacArthur) raise him to a level of shrewdness approaching genius, in elevating Marshall, and then in elevating Eisenhower to Supreme Allied Commander. Read this book solely for the Marshall section and learn about one of America's most capable and greatest leaders.
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