The Roosevelts
An Intimate History: Enhanced with Audio and Video
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
This enhanced eBook includes original audio recordings of presidential speeches, exclusive chapter introduction videos by Ken Burns and Geoffrey Ward, and special footage about the making of the PBS documentary, THE ROOSEVELTS.
An extraordinarily vivid and personal portrait of America's greatest political family and its enormous impact on our nation-the tie-in volume to the PBS documentary to air in the fall of 2014.
This engaging, revelatory book is an intimate history of three extraordinary individuals from the same extraordinary family-Theodore, Eleanor, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Geoffrey C. Ward, distilling more than thirty years of thinking and writing about the Roosevelts, and the acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns help us understand for the first time that, despite the fierce partisanship of their eras and ours, the Roosevelts were far more united than divided. All the history the Roosevelts made is here, but this is primarily a book about human beings, each of whom somehow overcame obstacles that would have undone less forceful personalities, and all of whom wrestled in their lives with issues still familiar to the rest of us-anger and the need for forgiveness, courage and cowardice, confidence and self-doubt, loyalty to family and the need to be oneself. This is the story of the Roosevelts-no other American family ever touched so many lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this impressively thorough history, and companion piece to a forthcoming PBS series, historian/screenwriter Ward and producer/director Burns (Baseball: An Illustrated History) examine the lives and careers of one of America's most memorable political dynasties, the Roosevelts, as represented by Theodore, Eleanor, and Franklin. Starting with Teddy's asthma-plagued youth and ending with Eleanor's death in 1962, every aspect of their lives and legacies is touched upon. Hundreds of photos, newspaper clippings, and accompanying captions flesh out the story, which expands to cover their friends and family, enemies, and (alleged) lovers. While none of the brief, chronological entries are incredibly deep, each offers a solid background to the relevant material, providing an engaging look at America during the first half of the 20th century. Part history, part biography, Ward and Burns strike the perfect balance between information and entertainment, keeping the tone casual yet authoritative. It would be a monumental task to cover any one of the three in full detail; this, then, is the perfect coffee table book treatment for such a trio.
