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Title details for Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham - Available

Franklin and Winston

An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

by Jon Meacham
Grover Gardner
Audiobook
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “beautifully written and superbly researched dual biography” (Los Angeles Times Book Review), Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham “paints a powerful portrait of the enormous friendship between World War II allies [Franklin] Roosevelt and [Winston] Churchill” (Vanity Fair).
 
“Intense and compelling reading.”—The Washington Post
Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of “the Greatest Generation.” In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II. 
Born in the nineteenth century and molders of the twentieth and twenty-first, Roosevelt and Churchill had much in common. In their own time both men were underestimated, dismissed as arrogant, and faced skeptics in their own nations—yet both magnificently rose to the central challenges of the twentieth century. Theirs was a kind of love story, with an emotional Churchill courting an elusive Roosevelt. The British prime minister, who rallied his nation in its darkest hour, standing alone against Adolf Hitler, was always somewhat insecure about his place in FDR’s affections—which was the way Roosevelt wanted it. A man of secrets, FDR liked to keep people off balance, including his wife, Eleanor, his White House aides—and Winston Churchill.
Meacham’s sources—including unpublished letters of FDR’ s great secret love, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, the papers of Pamela Churchill Harriman, and interviews with people who were in FDR and Churchill’s joint company—shed light on the characters of both men as he engagingly chronicles the hours in which they decided the course of the struggle.
Charting the personal drama behind the discussions of strategy and statecraft, Meacham has written the definitive account of the most remarkable friendship of the modern age.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 7, 2003

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415947821
      • File size: 392073 KB
      • Duration: 13:36:49

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Roosevelt and Churchill became friends through their mutual defense of the free world during WWII. The detailed story of how that friendship unfolded and deepened reveals their personalities and the social processes they used in making their mega-decisions. This salutary biography challenges the narrator's skills with dual principals, but Grover Gardner's comfortable pace smooths the jumps between the two lives and two governments into a consistent narrative. Gardner doesn't do characterizations, thereby missing some opportunities for color in the abundant quotations by men who loved to talk. Experienced biography aficionados looking for a low-cal intellectual dessert should taste this plethora of minutiae on two twentieth-century titans. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 4, 2003
      Meacham, managing editor of Newsweek
      (editor, Voices in Our Blood), delivers an eloquent, well-researched account of one of the 20th century's most vital friendships: that between FDR and Winston Churchill. Both men were privileged sons of wealth, and both had forebears (in Churchill's case, Leonard Jerome) prominent in New York society during the 19th century. Both enjoyed cocktails and a smoke. And both were committed to the Anglo-American alliance. Indeed, Roosevelt and Churchill each believed firmly that the "English-speaking peoples" represented the civilized world's first, best hope to counter and conquer the barbarism of the Axis. Meacham uses previously untapped archives and has interviewed surviving Roosevelt and Churchill staffers present at the great men's meetings in Washington, Hyde Park, Casablanca and Tehran. Thus he has considerable new ground to break, new anecdotes to offer and prescient observations to make. Throughout, Meacham highlights Roosevelt's and Churchill's shared backgrounds as sons of the ruling elite, their genuine, gregarious friendship, and their common worldview during staggeringly troubled times. To meet with Roosevelt, Churchill recalled years later, "with all his buoyant sparkle, his iridescence," was like "opening a bottle of champagne"—a bottle from which the tippling Churchill desperately needed a good long pull through 1940 and '41, as the Nazis savaged Europe and tortured British civilians with air attacks. One comes away from this account convinced of the "Great Personality" theory of history and gratified that Roosevelt and Churchill possessed the character that they did and came to power at a time when no other partnership would do.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      NEWSWEEK Managing Editor Jon Meacham explores the enduring friendship that developed between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill during the course of their careers. Beyond ushering the world through the second great war, the two leaders developed an intimate relationship that led to scores of personal correspondences and the spending of holidays together. Tony Award winner Len Cariou reads the account in a warm, stately voice, altering his tone and accent just slightly to differentiate the comments of the two men. Cariou captures with ease the personalities of these elite world leaders and the characters who surrounded them. With just the right amount of drama and depth, Cariou and Meacham portray the unique bond between two of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century. H.L.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 2, 2004
      Drawing on interviews with surviving staffers and other previously untapped sources, Newsweek managing editor Meacham delves into the deep and complicated relationship between the two men who may very well have been the most powerful men on the planet during the most threatening times of the 20th century. FDR and Churchill spent much time together (a total of 113 days), planning, eating, smoking and drinking many a cocktail, and Meacham fleshes out the men behind the public faces, revealing the intricacies and the sometimes raw opportunism of their complicated relationship. Veteran actor and audiobook reader Cariou's authoritative presentation is rock solid and gripping. His gravelly baritone is transformed into Roosevelt's calm yet commanding voice one minute, and Churchill's more bombastic British accent the next (though occasionally, his enthusiastic Churchill is reminiscent of the sinister aliens Kang and Kodos from The Simpsons
      ). All in all, he does a wonderful job of capturing not only the friendship between the two men, but also the tensions that build as the world turns to war. Simultaneous release with the Random hardcover (Forecasts, Aug. 4, 2003).

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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