This is a first class biography. A pleasure to read. ( )

I have long regarded Franklin Roosevelt as one of the greatest American presidents, but I don't think I fully appreciated him as a person until I read Ward's book while I was in college. While the preceding volume, [b:Before the Trumpet|641176|Before the Trumpet The Young Franklin Roosevelt|Geoffrey C. Ward|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|3344880], is good, it's this second one, which covers FDR's life from his marriage to Eleanor Roosevelt to his successful campaign for the governorship of New York in 1928, that is truly brilliant. Credit is due not just to Ward's skills as a writer, but the insight he brings to FDR's life as a fellow polio victim. After reading it it's impossible not to appreciate the role the infliction of the disease played in making FDR who he was as president. ( )

Tried to read, but found it too detailed. It just wasn’t holding my interest.

2782 A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt, by Geoffrey C. Ward (read 12 Sep 1995) (Book of the Year) (National Book Critics Circle biography award for 1989) This great volume covers FDR from his marriage on March 17, 1905, to Nov. 1928 when he was elected Governor of New York. This is a truly magnificent volume, and I found it superlative and it told me much I did not know before. The years from 1913 to 1920, when he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, his run in 1920 for Vice-President, and then the highly dramatic story of his effort to deal with his polio, from 1921 on--all I found excellent reading. Ward himself is a "polio" and I just can't admire enough--and hadn't realized how bad FDR's polio was--the fight FDR made. The book is not unfailingly laudatory, and I am glad it isn't, because we know FDR had flaws. This is the best book I read this year. ( )