Showing results by author "Blanche Wiesen Cook"

Work, love, family, sex, and politics - all of these topics have been grist for the mills of some of this century's finest women writers. On this recording a remarkable company of women deliver individual perspectives on feminine passions.

Eleanor Roosevelt was born into the privileges and prejudices of American aristocracy and into a family ravaged by alcoholism. She overcame debilitating roots: in her public life, fighting against racism and injustice and advancing the rights of women; and in her private life, forming lasting intimate friendships with some of the great men and women of her time.

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.

Historians, politicians, feminists, critics, and reviewers everywhere have praised Blanche Wiesen Cook's monumental Eleanor Roosevelt as the definitive portrait of this towering female figure of the 20th century. Now, in her long-awaited, majestic second volume, Cook takes listeners through the tumultuous era of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the gathering storms of World War II - the years of the Roosevelts' greatest challenges and finest achievements.

Blanche Wiesen Cook recreates Eleanor Roosevelt in all of her roles -- as a visionary, an activist, a political wife, and a woman far more independent than we knew. No other First Lady has had a greater influence in the course of democracy in this century, and no other book about Eleanor Roosevelt captures the complexity of her character - her wit, her passion, her boldness, and her commitment to greater dignity and security for all women and men.