Book #46: No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin

I have been meaning and wanting to read this book for a while. Goodwin's Team of Rivals was one of my favorite books I've ever read--so I've wanted to read more books by her but haven't gotten around to it until now. This book obviously is about FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt and their relationship and what they accomplished on the home front in America during WWII. The narrative starts in 1940 when Hitler began invading other countries in Europe, and then ends when Roosevelt dies in 1945. I really enjoyed reading this book and learning more about FDR and Eleanor individually and as a team, and about the country's development and change during WWII and that crazy time. Although Goodwin doesn't discuss much about what they did before WWII, even though FDR had been president for six or seven years before WWII starts, it's obvious that FDR and Eleanor had a great working partnership established well before this time period because of all the things they were able to accomplish together. Goodwin paints a portrait of Eleanor as insecure in many ways but extremely morally focused and motivated by wanting to help others, and FDR as kind of self-centered and much more politically motivated by what the public wanted and would accept rather than what he believed was right. It makes FDR seem like less of a good guy, but he was also much more realistic and accomplished much more than Eleanor could have on her own. They were such a good team because Eleanor pushed him in forward-thinking directions while FDR helped her see what was possible.

During the war, FDR made a lot of logistical decisions that made a huge difference in the ability of the US to help win the war. He was focused on spurring manufacturing to build up the "arsenal of democracy," stopping strikes that were causing problems with war manufacturing, and helping Great Britain and Russia to stop Germany's advances. Eleanor, on the other hand, was seriously concerned with making sure that the strides of the New Deal towards helping labor improve their circumstances were not curtailed because of the necessities of war. She focused on improving Negro relations at home and in the armed forces, tried to represent to FDR when strikers had good reason for striking, and spent weeks and months traveling around the world visiting US soldiers to try and boost morale however she could. They both did so much, it's unbelievable to see how they managed--and kind of unsurprising that it basically killed FDR in the end. He died of a brain hemorrhage a month or so before V-E day.

After reading the book, Eleanor definitely comes off as maybe a little of a workaholic but more of the sympathetic character of the two to me. I really detested FDR's womanizing personality and how he always wanted to be around beautiful, simpering women who wanted to lavish him with praise. Eleanor may not have understood him in a lot of ways, like always wanting to make him work when he needed to relax, but I hated how they both had these somewhat intimate relationships (not necessarily romantic, but mentally intimate) with other people and not with their spouse. I respect them both for how well they maneuvered the country at this time but I didn't love that about them. But nobody's perfect. And I just came away from this book feeling like our country could not have survived that era without the two of them.