I finished Thomas Fleming’s, The New Dealers’ War: F.D.R. And The War Within World War II. An interesting book that largely occurs against the backdrop of World War II, but essentially is a political and secondarily a diplomatic history.

The book describes how Franklin Roosevelt as a preeminent politician did all he could to pull the United States out of the Great Depression slowly cajole and push to convince the citizens to enter World War II which ultimately occurred by Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany’s declaration of war on the United States.

The War was largely a political war between the adamant new dealers and Franklin Roosevelt’s unorthodox leadership style, which was often undermining to those he put into power in a large variety of alphabet soup agencies and changing positions with what sometimes appears to be the changing of political whims. Roosevelt always portrayed himself a left of center politician who slowly replaced many many of his most liberal appointees and cabinet members and 2 Vice Presidents with more conservative and business oriented individuals.

The secondary war was with those who wholeheartedly believed in communism and the Soviet Union as a friendly nation paving the way of the future, those fervent anti-communists and those willing to make any bargains to beat the Germans and the Nazi Regime and Imperial Japan.

Ultimately Roosevelt led both wars with the same style he believed he was right and could through sheer will convince his political opponents and Stalin to follow his lead, but ultimately the stress of leading the country through war and the Great Depression overwhelmed his body and ultimately paid the price of a weakened body and early death.

A found this book to be extremely interesting and unusual in the focus of a World War II on non military aspects of the war.

A solid 4 star read. ( )

Recommended as a cf. to what I'm adding to my "library", I feel there is a very good likelihood that this will be a very good book.