FDR and the American Crisis by Albert Marrin (review)

In the introduction to this ambitious and sprawling biography, Marrin lays out a number of questions that arise from the “hard, even morally doubtful decisions” that Franklin Roosevelt made throughout his presidency. Teens who are politically engaged—or at least aware of national news—will readily discern that understanding FDR will take them a long way toward understanding hot-button questions in contemporary governance. As Marrin demonstrates, however, understanding Roosevelt is no easy matter. Readers meet the son smothered by motherly love, who learns early on to smile broadly and do exactly what he wants. They meet a disengaged student, a dilettante career-hopper, an adulterous husband, a charming but emotionally distant father, and above all, a savvy politician with a gift for schmooze and the hubris to believe himself capable of tackling any crisis, including the Great Depression and World War II. As in his biography of John Brown (A Volcano Beneath the Snow, BCCB 4/14), Marrin refrains from passing judgment but presents his subject at his best and worst and guides readers to draw their own conclusions. Any reader willing to take on nearly three hundred pages of doublecolumned text, however, is unlikely to need the lengthy chapters of background history, which often leave FDR on the sidetrack of his own story. The narrative also stumbles and stalls from time to time as Marrin pauses to explain quotations, or to include entertaining vignettes that carry the whiff of apocrypha. Although this may be a daunting undertaking for students with only casual interest in the thirty-second president, the breadth of coverage, notes, bibliography, and index will make it a useful resource for researchers.