Acclaimed historian Thomas Fleming brings to life a flawed and troubled FDR struggling to
manage World War II. 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 on
a journey through the incredibly fractious struggles and debates that went on in Washington,
the nation, and the world as the New Dealers strove to impose their will on the conduct of
the War. In bold contrast to the familiar, idealized FDR of other biographies, Fleming's
Roosevelt is a man in remorseless decline, battered by ideological forces and primitive
hatreds that he could not handleand frequently failed to understandsome of them leading
to unimaginable catastrophe. Among FDR's most dismaying policies, Fleming argues, is his
insistence on "unconditional surrender" for Germany (a policy that perhaps prolonged the war
by as much as two years, leaving millions more dead) and his often-uncritical embrace of and
acquiescence to Stalin and the Soviets as an ally. The New Dealers' War is one of those rare
books that force readers to rethink what they think they know about a pivotal event in
the American past.

Thomas Fleming is the author of more than forty books, including The New Dealers' War, Duel,
and Liberty! The American Revolution, as well as best-selling novels about America's war
experience such as Time and Tide and The Officers' Wives. Fleming is a frequent guest on and
contributor to NPR, PBS, A&E, and the History Channel. He lives in New York City and Westbrook,
Connecticut.

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