FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: The Apprenticeship

The tremendous vitality of F.D.R.'s controversial personality makes each book about him again an absorbing experience for the reader. Possibly to those who have read the first two volumes of the Letters (though Vol. II goes beyond the scope of this) much of this material will be familiar; to those who have seen the Gosnell Champion Campaigner (see report P. 541, bulletin of August 15th) some of the early political aspects will be a repeat performance. But even on these two scores, Freidel brings new focus, fresh material, vigorous presentation which overrides the somewhat limited appeal of each of the other books. There is- to me (and I've probably read much more than the average reader on the subject) more substance to the data on Mr. James Roosevelt and his influence on his son, than I've found elsewhere. There is new data on the Haitiian trip in 1917. There is frank assessment of Roosevelt's fundamental differences with his chief, Sec. Daniels, not always to Roosevelt's advantage. But in the main the book is enthusiastic and partisan, despite the publisher's statement than it is ""objective and dispassionate"". The Groton years, the Harvard years, are treated with greater emphasis on their part in the revelation of potentials and in character molding than other biographers have suggested. There is less on the period of courtship and early marriage- perhaps because --as the subtitle suggests- these years are viewed as an ""apprecticeship"" to a subsequent role in history. First of a projected six-volume biography, this goes through his years as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.