His Final Battle

The Last Months of Franklin Roosevelt

By: Joseph Lelyveld

Narrated by: Dan Woren

Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

A New York Times Notable Book •

A prizewinning author and journalist untangles the narrative threads of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s final months, showing how he juggled the strategic, political, and personal choices he faced as the war, his presidency, and his life raced in tandem to their climax.

"A gripping, deeply human account... Moving, elegiac." —The New York Times Book Review

The story has been told piecemeal but never like this, with a close focus on Roosevelt himself and his hopes for a stable international order after the war, and how these led him into a prolonged courtship of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, involving secret, arduous journeys to Tehran and the Crimea. In between, as the war entered its final phase, came the thunderbolt of a dire medical diagnosis, raising urgent questions about the ability of the longest-serving president to stand for a fourth term at a time when he had little choice. Neither his family nor top figures in his administration were informed of his diagnosis, let alone the public or his closest ally, Winston Churchill.

With D-Day looming, Roosevelt took a month off on a plantation in the south where he was examined daily by a navy cardiologist, then waited two more months before finally announcing, on the eve of his party’s convention, that he’d be a candidate. A political grand master still, he manipulated the selection of a new running mate, with an eye to a possible succession, displaying some of his old vigor and wit in a winning campaign.

With precision and compassion, Joseph Lelyveld examines the choices Roosevelt faced, shining new light on his state of mind, preoccupations, and motives, both as leader of the wartime alliance and in his personal life. Confronting his own mortality, Roosevelt operated in the belief that he had a duty to see the war through to the end, telling himself he could always resign if he found he couldn’t carry on.

Lelyveld delivers an incisive portrait of this deliberately inscrutable man, a consummate leader to the very last.

©2016 Joseph Lelyveld (P)2016 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Meticulous.... The author expertly puts together a string of poignant clues to FDR's last acts.... An elegant, affecting work that offers fresh insights on a much-mythologized president." ( Kirkus Reviews)

"Joseph Lelyveld traces the last, challenging months of FDR’s life with a pitch-perfect blend of meticulous reporting, careful analysis, and deep humanity. For all that has been written about Roosevelt, this deeply-moving book adds significantly to our understanding of that remarkable man." (Gay Talese)

Informative And Engaging

I enjoyed this audiobook immensely. I learned quite a lot about FDR, his health problems, his relationship with his family and the women in his life, the challenges facing him and the country in the final years of the war and his life, Churchill and Stalin and the complexities of the alliance of the Big Three, and the aftermath of his death. The narration was excellent. I highly recommend this audiobook if you are interested in WW2, presidents, or Roosevelt.

Could have been more entertaining

I think this reading could have benefited from several different voices to break up the long text. The details, while interesting and necessary, made listening tedious at times.

not very engaging

Based on reviews, I expected to love this book. I enjoy biographies where the historical subject comes alive, making the history come alive, too. The start had potential, but the story of FDR jumped around too much, with too much emphasis on secondary characters and background information. FDR was somehow lost in the shuffle. I listened for about five hours before giving up. It is possible that those "final months" might have come alive had I stayed with this a little longer, but I did not care enough to wait and see. To me, the first third of the book was pretty flat.