The Roosevelt Presence: The Life and Legacy of FDR

Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only twentieth-century president consistently ranked by historians with the Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln. His leadership in the dark hours of the Depression and the Second World War has endowed him in the eyes of many with an aura of greatness, and his presidency has been the explicit or implicit model for all of his successors, from Truman to Clinton. In this concise biography, Patrick J. Maney provides an original and insightful reexamination of Roosevelt's life and legacy, carefully sifting fact from myth and showing how the Roosevelt legendand#151;for good and for illand#151;has shaped the modern presidency.

"Easily the most thoughtful, politically astute, and historiographically up to date of the many single-volume biographies."and#151;Anthony J. Badger, author of The New Deal

"The most penetrating and best balanced assessment of FDR as political leader and man of his times that has yet been published."and#151;John Milton Cooper, author of The Warrior and the Priest

Patrick J. Maney is Professor and Chair of the History Department, University of South Carolina and the author of "Young Bob" La Follette: A Biography of Robert M. La Follette Jr., 1895-1953 (1978).