No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II

Reviews

1. 

   Jack Sparacino – July 25, 2024

   No Ordinary Historian
   This book is simply epic in scope and a masterpiece in style and content. It is spectacularly well researched and written with the apparent intent of reaching a very broad audience, to include not only WWII buffs but enthusiasts of American history and extraordinary biography. The depth of background research suggests that the author dedicated decades of her life to studying nothing but Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and their associates and rivals. How Ms. Goodwin managed to write other superb books, make innumerable appearances in TV, and raise a family will probably continue to astound her readers for decades to come.That said, assorted winds were blowing at her back. First is the undeniably fascinating focal point of the president and first lady, the likes of which this country has not seen before or since. Far from being merely the prototypical New Dealer, Goodwin reveals FDR as the penultimate political tactician. He was a consummate master of reading the public’s readiness to embrace social and political change, including the launching of New Deal programs intended to put Depression era America back to work, the transition to a war time production footing, and incremental steps toward racial equality and integration, including such nearly impenetrable bastions as the United States Navy where for decades, blacks were overwhelmingly more likely to serve as mess workers than sailors. FDR’s soul mate, the irrepressible agent of social welfare, Eleanor Roosevelt, is revealed as a once the damaged product of a troubled childhood and a lifetime juggernaut, a virtually tireless advocate for the poor, women, minorities and anyone else who was otherwise disenfranchised.Perhaps above all else, including a riveting account of how the U.S. finally came to put its full might behind the war effort, “No Ordinary Time” paints an incredible complex and subtle relationship between FDR and the first lady. This was a love affair perhaps unlike any in history, mostly for the better, but at times for the worse. At their best, they were tireless advocates for the nation’s and each others’ needs, causes and passions. At their worst, they were a couple who largely lived apart, both physically and spiritually. Their extra-marital relationships were probably unique, not merely because they happened over a period of decades, but in their idiosyncratic nature. FDR had the equivalent of at least two full blown extramarital relationships, while Eleanor was the subject of a romantically obsessed female reporter and the fount of an obsession of her own making with a man young enough to have been her son. One is led to believe that FDR and Eleanor’s combined levels of extraordinary energy and sociopolitical passion were directly fueled by their relationships with other men and women across most of their adult lives.This book is so richly detailed and nuanced that one could ignore (at their great loss) all the psychological intrigue and simply focus on the most distressing and fascinating war in history. The description of how the U.S. transitioned from an isolationist nation wishing to avoid involvement in another world war at all costs to the driver of the Allied effort is intriguing. If for no other reason, one can devour this book for its revelations over how we turned a consumer nation good at making cars, trucks, washing and sewing machines to a crushingly effective manufacturer of warplanes, tanks, ships, guns and ammunition.Read this book for the psychological, political, or economic content. You can not possibly miss out on a fantastic learning experience and yes, this truly was the Greatest Generation.

2. 

   Laine Scheetz – July 25, 2024

   No Oridinay Time
   I have enjoyed many books written by Kearns- Goodwin. She is a terrific historical researcher and writer. I thought that she did a terrific job chronicling the events of the times, revealing the interactions of the Roosevelt family along with FDR and his cabinet members.

3. 

   Linda – July 25, 2024

   Excellent! Informative, well written. Big picture and intimate. A page-turner.

4. 

   Norman Bissett – July 25, 2024

   Doris Kearns Goodwin is a brílliant, prize-winning, political biographer. Ordering a vast body of information expertly, she also has the gifts of brilliant analysis, scrupulous research and sheer readability. This is the third of her political biographies that we have read (following Lincoln and Lyndon B Johnson). All are equally brilliant.

5. 

   Candian reader – July 25, 2024

   This is rather annoying. Pls la la la la John hi yt? Uy oh la ‘ll lop the junk mail

6. 

   C. Ball – July 25, 2024

   It is easy to see why this book won the Pulitzer Prize: there can surely be no better examination of the American home-front during World War II: its slow adjustment from isolation to dedicated involvement, the adjustment of the economy and business from the Depression to a war footing, the social progress made by women and African-Americans and the disgraceful treatment of Japanese-Americans.Goodwin demonstrates just how entwined were the endeavours of the soldiers at the battlefront and the domestic workers at home, how much the eventual Allied victory relied on the immense manufacturing capability of the American economy. The Allies didn’t win World War II through superior soldiering or strategy; the Axis powers were simply swamped by the overwhelming might of the American military-industrial complex. And all of these efforts, of industry and business and economics and labour, were all guided and shaped by the hand of Franklin Roosevelt, with Eleanor at his side serving as his eyes and ears where the crippled Roosevelt could not go, forging a independent role for herself and revolutionising the role of First Lady.It must surely be one of the great what-ifs of history – what if Franklin Roosevelt had not been at the helm during World War II? Would another President have supported the Allies the way he did? Would another President have come up with lend-lease? Would another President have forged quite the same relationship with Churchill or Stalin? Would another President have had a wife quite as remarkable as Eleanor Roosevelt, to serve as his social conscience and moral arbiter? It is of course impossible to say, but reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s remarkable book, one can only be thankful that such an extraordinary couple as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were in the White House at this most crucial of times.

7. 

   Beamerdog – July 25, 2024

   Best ever. Doris is the queen of bios.