The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency

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The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency

Here, from James Tobin, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography, is the story of the greatest comeback in American political history, a saga long buried in half-truth, distortion, and mythâ€”Franklin Rooseveltâ€™s ten-year climb from paralysis to the White House.

In 1921, at the age of thirty-nine, Roosevelt was the brightest young star in the Democratic Party. One day he was racing his children around their summer home. Two days later he could not stand up. Hopes of a quick recovery faded fast. â€œHeâ€™s through,â€ said allies and enemies alike. Even his family and close friends misjudged their man, as they and the nation would learn in time.

With a painstaking reexamination of original documents, James Tobin uncovers the twisted chain of accidents that left FDR paralyzed; he reveals how polio recast Rooseveltâ€™s fateful partnership with his wife, Eleanor; and he shows that FDRâ€™s true victory was not over paralysis but over the ancient stigma attached to the disabled. Tobin also explodes the conventional wisdom of recent yearsâ€”that FDR deceived the public about his condition. In fact, Roosevelt and his chief aide, Louis Howe, understood that only by displaying himself as a man who had come back from a knockout punch could FDR erase the perception that had followed him from childhoodâ€”that he was a pampered, too smooth pretty boy without the strength to lead the nation. As Tobin persuasively argues, FDR became president less in spite of polio than because of polio.

The Man He Became affirms that true character emerges only in crisis and that in the shaping of this great American leader character was all.
Country USA
Brand Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer Simon & Schuster
Binding Paperback
ReleaseDate 2014-09-02
UnitCount 1
Format Illustrated
EANs 9780743265164

Country	USA
Brand	Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer	Simon & Schuster
Binding	Paperback
ReleaseDate	2014-09-02
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
EANs	9780743265164

The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency

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