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World War II: FDR

Topic guide covering the events surrounding World War II.

Internet Resources

Research & Reference

Teachable Moments: World War II

 

Teachable Moments are short films that provide a quick overview of important topics and events from the Roosevelt Era. Created by the FDR Library's Education staff with the support of the Pare Lorenz Center, they are designed to assist primary and secondary school students.

Source: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnYXL2y0SAPHgTO3_oKdMWcaxCFLjIrvv

President Franklin D. Roosevelt Declares War on Japan

 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares war on Japan the day after American naval and military forces were attacked at Pearl Harbor.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK8gYGg0dkE

Perspectives

The Mantle of Command

Based on years of archival research and interviews with the last surviving aides and Roosevelt family members, Nigel Hamilton offers a definitive account of FDR's masterful--and underappreciated--command of the Allied war effort. Hamilton takes readers inside FDR's White House Oval Study--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.  Time and again, FDR was proven right and his allies and generals were wrong. When the generals wanted to attack the Nazi-fortified coast of France, FDR knew the Allied forces weren't ready. When Churchill insisted his Far East colonies were loyal and would resist the Japanese, Roosevelt knew it was a fantasy. As Hamilton's account reaches its climax with the Torch landings in North Africa in late 1942, the tide of war turns in the Allies' favor and FDR'sgenius for psychology and military affairs is clear. This intimate, sweeping look at a great president in history's greatest conflict is must reading.

Roosevelt's Secret War

A study of FDR's role in the secret war undergirding World War II reveals Roosevelt as an enthusiastic instigator of many covert operations against the Nazis, the Japanese, and the Soviet Union.

The New Dealers' War

Acclaimed historian Thomas Fleming brings to life the flawed and troubled FDR who struggled to manage WWII. Starting with the leak to the press of Roosevelt's famous Rainbow Plan, then spiraling back to FDR's inept prewar diplomacy with Japan, and his various attempts to lure Japan into an attack on the U.S. Fleet in the Pacific, Fleming takes the reader inside the incredibly fractious struggles and debates that went on in Washington, the nation, and the world as the New Dealers, led by FDR, strove to impose their will on the conduct of the War. Unlike the familiar yet idealized FDR of Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time, the reader encounters a Roosevelt in remorseless decline, battered by ideological forces and primitive hatreds which he could not handle-and frequently failed to understand-some of them leading to unimaginable catastrophe. Among FDR's most dismaying policies, Fleming argues, were an insistence on "unconditional surrender" for Germany (a policy that perhaps prolonged the war by as many as two years, leaving millions more dead) and his often uncritical embrace of and acquiescence to Stalin and the Soviets as an ally.For many Americans, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is a beloved, heroic, almost mythic figure, if not for the "big government" that was spawned under his New Deal, then certainly for his leadership through the War. The New Dealers' War paints a very different portrait of this leadership. It is sure to spark debate.

Commander in Chief

In the next installment of the "splendid memoir Roosevelt didn't get to write" (New York Times),  Nigel Hamilton tells the astonishing story of FDR's year-long, defining battle with Churchill, as the war raged in Africa and Italy. Nigel Hamilton's Mantle of Command, long-listed for the National Book Award, drew on years of archival research and interviews to portray FDR in a tight close up, as he determined Allied strategy in the crucial initial phases of World War II.Commander in Chief reveals the astonishing sequel -- suppressed by Winston Churchill in his memoirs -- of Roosevelt's battles with Churchill to maintain that strategy.  Roosevelt knew that the Allies should take Sicily but avoid a wider battle in southern Europe, building experience but saving strength to invade France in early 1944. Churchill seemed to agree at Casablanca -- only to undermine his own generals and the Allied command, testing Roosevelt's patience to the limit. Churchill was afraid of the invasion planned for Normandy, and pushed instead for disastrous fighting in Italy, thereby almost losing the war for the Allies. In a dramatic showdown, FDR finally set the ultimate course for victory by making the ultimate threat.Commander in Chief shows FDR in top form at a crucial time in the modern history of the West.

The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945

The 45 primary sources found in Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945 provide you with a rich context to understand the multifaceted role FDR had as president, reformer, policymaker, and commander-in-chief.

The World Wars: Franklin D. Roosevelt

Mini-biography on the life of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ax8VBf2fbg

Running for President During WWII

 

With World War II coming to a close, America held its presidential election in 1944, voting on who would determine the fate of a post-war world. Franklin D. Roosevelt, seeking his 4th term, faced off against Thomas E. Dewey, the Governor of New York. As you'll see, the hype leading up to the election was not unlike what Americans experience today.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYtWha4BK9E