The Old New Deal

Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by H. W. Brands (Doubleday, 888 pp., $35)

THIS is a rigorous and readable work by H. W. Brands, a very accomplished biographer. At 824 pages of text, it is not overlong for its complicated subject, but it is a bit eccentric about what is included and what is left out. Thus we have two pages on an obscure press conference about the applicability of the unconditional-surrender policy to post-Mussolini Italy (it was waived), and two pages about whether the U.S. would send troops to Malaya in 1942 (a mad idea that was not seriously considered).

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Conrad Black

Conrad Black is the author of Donald J. Trump, A President Like No Other.

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Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by H. W. Brands (Doubleday, 888 pp., $35)

THIS is a rigorous and readable work by H. W. Brands, a very accomplished biographer. At 824 pages of text, it is not overlong for its complicated subject, but it is a bit eccentric about what is included and what is left out. Thus we have two pages on an obscure press conference about the applicability of the unconditional-surrender policy to post-Mussolini Italy (it was waived), and two pages about whether the U.S. would send troops to Malaya in 1942 (a mad idea that was not seriously considered).