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Title details for Roosevelt's Centurions by Joseph E. Persico - Available

Roosevelt's Centurions

FDR and the Commanders He Led to Victory in World War II

by Joseph E. Persico
Dan Woren
Audiobook
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“FDR’s centurions were my heroes and guides. Now Joe Persico has written the best account of those leaders I've ever read.”—Colin L. Powell
All American presidents are commanders in chief by law. Few perform as such in practice. In Roosevelt’s Centurions, distinguished historian Joseph E. Persico reveals how, during World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt seized the levers of wartime power like no president since Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Declaring himself “Dr. Win-the-War,” FDR assumed the role of strategist in chief, and, though surrounded by star-studded generals and admirals, he made clear who was running the war. FDR was a hands-on war leader, involving himself in everything from choosing bomber targets to planning naval convoys to the design of landing craft. Persico explores whether his strategic decisions, including his insistence on the Axis powers’ unconditional surrender, helped end or may have prolonged the war.
Taking us inside the Allied war councils, the author reveals how the president brokered strategy with contentious allies, particularly the iron-willed Winston Churchill; rallied morale on the home front; and handpicked a team of proud, sometimes prickly warriors who, he believed, could fight a global war. Persico’s history offers indelible portraits of the outsize figures who roused the “sleeping giant” that defeated the Axis war machine: the dutiful yet independent-minded George C. Marshall, charged with rebuilding an army whose troops trained with broomsticks for rifles, eggs for hand grenades; Dwight Eisenhower, an unassuming Kansan elevated from obscurity to command of the greatest fighting force ever assembled; the vainglorious Douglas MacArthur; and the bizarre battlefield genius George S. Patton. Here too are less widely celebrated military leaders whose contributions were just as critical: the irascible, dictatorial navy chief, Ernest King; the acerbic army advisor in China, “Vinegar” Joe Stilwell; and Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, who zealously preached the gospel of modern air power. The Roosevelt who emerges from these pages is a wartime chess master guiding America’s armed forces to a victory that was anything but foreordained.
What are the qualities we look for in a commander in chief? In an era of renewed conflict, when Americans are again confronting the questions that FDR faced—about the nature and exercise of global power—Roosevelt’s Centurions is a timely and revealing examination of what it takes to be a wartime leader in a freewheeling, complicated, and tumultuous democracy.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 28, 2013

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780449012215
      • File size: 709879 KB
      • Duration: 24:38:54

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Listeners will enjoy some aspects of this reading of Persico's top-down history of WWII, which is centered on President Franklin Roosevelt place in the events. Narrator Dan Woren has an excellent voice, professional and engaging. He expresses the sense and the emotion of the text without drawing attention to the reading. But his efforts go badly awry in his voice imitations, accents, and pronunciation of foreign or uncommon words. His FDR often sounds like JFK, and his Hitler is comically bad, as are his British, French, and German accents in general. His Chinese, Japanese, and black American accents verge on caricature. Many distracting changes in vocal sound and quality indicate the sloppy editing of rerecorded sections "dropped in." Woren seems poorly cast and unsupported by adequate direction. W.M. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 30, 2013
      No one can deny that F.D.R. was central to the Allied victory in WWII, but in his latest work, Persico (Roosevelt's Secret War) seeks to categorize how wise Roosevelt's choices were during the war. Persico wonders if Roosevelt's choices "hastened victory" or whether they "delayed the end with unnecessary death and destruction." He examines Roosevelt's susceptibility to Churchill's persistent charm offensive, and how it led to American troops landing in North Africa despite George Marshall's protests. Persico also notes that Roosevelt made the call for MacArthur to leave the Philippines, despite MacArthur's plan to stay on until the bitter end, after agreeing with MacArthurâin 1944 at the Honolulu conferenceâthat the Philippines must be retaken instead of island-hopping straight to Japan. The author does reveal surprising moments of Roosevelt's presidency, such as when he was visiting a hospital and revealed his disabled body to a ward filled with amputees, but even with his analysis Persico struggles to cover any new ground. This is a thorough account of the war, but since it fails to add to the discussion, we are left with the same portrait of Roosevelt we had before: a very capable leader in a trying time.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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