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Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3
- The War Years and After, 1939-1962
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 26 hrs and 25 mins
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Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3
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Publisher's Summary
The final volume in the definitive biography of America's greatest first lady.
Historians, politicians, critics, and listeners everywhere have praised Blanche Wiesen Cook's biography of Eleanor Roosevelt as the essential portrait of a woman who towers over the 20th century. The third and final volume takes us through World War II, FDR's death, the founding of the UN, and Eleanor Roosevelt's death in 1962. It follows the arc of war and the evolution of a marriage as the first lady realized the cost of maintaining her principles even as the country and her husband were not prepared to adopt them. Eleanor Roosevelt continued to struggle for her core issues - economic security, New Deal reforms, racial equality, and rescue - when they were sidelined by FDR while he marshaled the country through war. The chasm between Eleanor and Franklin grew, and the strains on their relationship were as political as they were personal. She also had to negotiate the fractures in the close circle of influential women around her at Val-Kill, but through it she gained confidence in her own vision, even when forced to amend her agenda when her beliefs clashed with government policies on such issues as neutrality, refugees, and eventually the threat of communism. These years - the war years - made Eleanor Roosevelt the woman she became: leader, visionary, guiding light. FDR's death in 1945 changed her world, but she was far from finished, returning to the spotlight as a crucial player in the founding of the United Nations.
This is a sympathetic but unblinking portrait of a marriage and of a woman whose passion and commitment has inspired generations of Americans to seek a decent future for all people. Modest and self-deprecating, a moral force in a turbulent world, Eleanor Roosevelt was unique.
What the critics say
“[T]he completion of Blanche Wiesen Cook’s monumental and inspirational life of Eleanor Roosevelt [series] is a notable event.... Volume 3 continues the story of Eleanor’s ‘journey to greatness’. Keeping the focus on her actions and reactions, Cook skillfully narrates the epic history of the war years.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“A monumental biography [and] an exhilarating story, as well as undeniably melancholy one. In her relentless efforts to push American democracy to fulfill its promises, Eleanor Roosevelt was ahead of her time. As we ponder our curdled political culture...it’s not at all clear that we have yet caught up to her.” (Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air)
“More than a presidential spouse, however, or feminist icon, the Eleanor Roosevelt who inhabits these meticulously crafted pages transcends both first-lady history and the marriage around which Roosevelt scholarship has traditionally pivoted.” (The Wall Street Journal)
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What listeners say about Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 2019-07-19
ER in Her Time
Although I’m sorry Blanche Wiesen Cook did not want to write a Volume IV to complete ER’s life in the detail it deserved, from 1945 to 1962, I am profoundly grateful to this author for the depth of her research and the breadth of her understanding. I am happy to hear ER’s lesbian friendships and loves finally confirmed. As a white woman raised in enormous privilege, yet with personal challenges, she grew in understanding, undertook to confront racism, anti-semitism and other oppressions to stand up for multiple minorities. ER’s life spanned a sweep of history encompassing two world wars, the growth of women’s suffrage, the many struggles for human dignity and fair treatement and the barbaric destruction of both in World War II, followed by the chequered path the world took to mend from atrocities. There are so many parallels between her time and ours it is uncanny. ER’s persistent courage in speaking up and publicly confronting her disagreements with FDR were inspiring. Her idealism and her pragmatism were often in competition, which speaks both to her political savvy and to her loyalty to FDR. Humanity owes her an everlasting debt for being one of the people who shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document we desperately continue to need to guide us. The sheer volume of her output demonstrates how fortunate she was to be blessed with an outstanding intelligence and life energy, which her world was fortunate to receive and we still are inheritors of her many legacies. Her faith in a forward trajectory for humankind is inspiring, even as we see so many backward steps being taken now. Like all of us, she failed at times, but she was mostly not afraid to address her mistakes. Having spent some months getting to know ER through these three volumes, I will miss her voice and her courage as I move on to other books, but I will also carry her clarity and determination with me.
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