The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942
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A DRAMATIC, EYE-OPENING ACCOUNT OF HOW FDR TOOK PERSONAL CHARGE OF THE MILITARY DIRECTION OF WORLD WAR II
Based on years of archival research and interviews with the last surviving Roosevelt aides and family members, The Mantle of Command offers a radical new perspective on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's masterful - and underappreciated - role as U.S. commander in chief during the Allied war effort. After the disaster of Pearl Harbor, we see Roosevelt devising a global strategy that will defeat Hitler and the Japanese, rescue Churchill and the UK, and begin to turn the tide of war in the Allies' favour. All the while, Hamilton's account drives toward Operation Torch – the invasion of French Northwest Africa – and reveals FDR's genius for psychology and military affairs.
Hamilton takes readers inside FDR's Oval Office - his personal command center - and into the meetings where he battled with Churchill about strategy and tactics and overrode the near mutinies of his own generals and secretary of war.
The first part of a major trilogy, The Mantle of Command explores the life of a man whose towering importance to the war is overlooked because of his untimely death. It is an intimate, sweeping examination of a great President in history's greatest conflict.
Nigel Hamilton
NIGEL HAMILTON is a best-selling and award-winning biographer of President John F. Kennedy, General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery, and President Bill Clinton, among other subjects. His most recent book, The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941–1942, was long-listed for the National Book Award. He is a senior fellow at the McCormack Graduate School, University of Massachusetts, Boston, and splits his time between Boston, Massachusetts, and New Orleans, Louisiana.
Read more from Nigel Hamilton
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Reviews for The Mantle of Command
29 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/55553. The Mantle of Command FDR at War 1941-1942, by Nigel Hamilton (read 26 Apr 2018) This is a 2014 book, the first of two volumes, studying FDR's course as commander-in-chief of the United States during World War Two. The author is English born but lives in the u.S. His book aims to do justice to FDR's role in leading the U.S. military in World War II. It never fails to show FDR in the best light, and denigrates Churchill and British forces during the years 1941 and 1942. He says General Marshall and Secretary Stimson and other American military were eager to launch a cross-Channel invasion of France in 1942, which the author says would have been disastrous and miht have enabled Hitler to win he war. He says FDR was in favor of invading North Africa and pushed for that course against u.S. milatary men and the British--and that Marshall and Stimson almost mutinied when FDR insisted on that invasion. The book has footnotes which lead me to think that Hamilton relied on few sources and was eager to support his view of FDR being right. I am not sure that Hamilton doesn't let his thesis of FDR being right and most others being wrong color his objectivity, eager though I am to believe what he says. The book gives a view of the momentous months of 1941 and 1942 which is quite different from other accounts I have read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent review and analysis of FDR's transition into a wartime commander in chief and leader of the nations united against the Axis. His breadth of vision and understanding of the roles that logistics, planning, and training must play in the creation of the military means needed; are quite beyond those of his generals and his allies, even Winston Churchill. His charm, tact, and perseverance are severely challenged by the tunnel vision and parochial last war thinking of Marshall, King and Secretary of War Stimson. The British, after two years of trying had yet to win a land battle and the Americans, had yet to fight one but each was adamant that they had the solution. Roosevelt, correctly, discerned that the Brits were too weak and the Yanks were nowhere near ready nor able. The learnings, about logistics from Guadalcanal as well as the leadership and training deficiencies during the Kasserine Pass Battle, were unfortunate demonstrations of his foresight.