This cradle-to-grave biography – the first single-volume portrait in six decades – rediscovers Eleanor Roosevelt’s life of transformation, from her Gilded Age childhood as the orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt; to an irreconcilable marriage with her ambitious fifth cousin Franklin, with whom she became a New York “power couple”; to her life-culminating role as world-circling activist, diplomat, and chief architect of international human rights.
Drawing on new research, Michaelis’ riveting portrait is rich with insight into Roosevelt’s emotional life and relationships, her struggles with motherhood, and role as her husband’s surrogate in which she transformed the career-ending storm of polio into the sunrise of the U.S. president who brought the nation out of the Depression and on to victory in World War II.
David Michaelis is the bestselling author of “Schulz and Peanuts” and “N.C. Wyeth,” which won the Ambassador Book Award for Biography.
Stanley N. Katz studied British and American history at Harvard where he also attended law school. He is president emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies. He has been a member of the Princeton University faculty since 1978 and was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.