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Rating: 
Summary: Not enough on FDR
Review: Davis has completed five books in his intended definitive biography of Franklin Roosevelt. This book is superbly researched and factual, but it isn't as interesting as other books on FDR by Ward or Freidel. Davis bogs down in trivial and irritating detail, which is peculiar, since the early Hyde Park years are among the most engrossing of Roosevelt's life. Davis is best when he examines FDR's relationship with his mother and father, but he spend *way* too much time examining the boring rich-pony set of Duchess County.Davis is weaker on forging memorable portraits of the intimate personal relationships in FDR's life. besides his parents. He doesn't really explore the loneliness Roosevelt felt at Groton and Harvard. There is a singular lack of understanding of Eleanor Roosevelt in this volume, nor is there much said about Roosevelt's children, his secretary Missy LeHand or other pivotal members of the FDR milieu. Davis does explore in interesting depth the effect of Howe's relationship with FDR. Roosevelt was a mercurial and difficult to understand character. His charismatic public facade masked some inner demons and foibles, which Davis painstakingly illuminates. This is an interesting, though ultimately, flawed effort.
Rating:
Summary: Davis lacks focus
Review: Let me start by saying that Kenneth S. Davis is a naturally talented writer and historian and this biography is very informative and entertaining. However it is simply too bloated, it does not just want to be a biography of FDR but a history of the aristocratic Hudson River society, Groton, Harvard, Tammany Hall and the Woodrow Wilson administration. I am a firm believer in a model of biography that puts the subject in their historical context, since no person can be understood without looking at the kind of envirnoment that formed their actions.
However Davis simply takes this too far by focusing on these particular aspects of the biography without really any explanation of why this is essential to understanding the character of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Davis is also to fixated on Eleanor and parts of the biography ignore his role in their relationship and focus on her life.
Overall this is a well written, compelling biography but it is simply too long and there are parts where the man himself gets lost in the world surrounding him. The fact that this volume is 853 pages and only gets as far as his election as the governor of New York shows how overblown the book is. Overall more editing was required to make this volume flow better and to give us a sense of Rooselvelt himself, this is a shame since this biography has so much more going for it.
Rating: 
Summary: How it all began...
Review: This book was awarded a well-deserved Parkman for the quality of its scholarship. This is the best book on the early years of FDR. It follows his childhood and explores the relationships with the key people in his life: the formidable Sara Delano Roosevelt, his marriage to Eleanor, and his political education from Louis Howe. This book also has a great deal to say about polio and how FDR and each of these people responded. This is not "Sunrise at Campabello, although it is clear that polio did make Roosevelt into the person who was able to become the greatest president of the 20th century.
Rating:
Summary: How it all began...
Review: This book was awarded a well-deserved Parkman for the quality of its scholarship. This is the best book on the early years of FDR. It follows his childhood and explores the relationships with the key people in his life: the formidable Sara Delano Roosevelt, his marriage to Eleanor, and his political education from Louis Howe. This book also has a great deal to say about polio and how FDR and each of these people responded. This is not "Sunrise at Campabello, although it is clear that polio did make Roosevelt into the person who was able to become the greatest president of the 20th century.
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