First published 2020
David Michaelis delivers the first comprehensive single-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt in sixty years. Drawing on new research, he traces her journey from orphaned niece of Theodore Roosevelt through her troubled marriage to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to her emergence as a global advocate for human rights. Michaelis reveals a more complex Eleanor than previous accounts, exploring her emotional vulnerabilities, her relationships with both women and men, and her sexual awakening after discovering Franklin's affair with Lucy Mercer. The author shows how Eleanor evolved from a settlement house volunteer into Franklin's political partner, then into an independent voice for the voiceless during his presidency. After FDR's death, she became architect of international human rights and a world citizen of the Atomic Age, urging Americans to develop a "world mind" to survive nuclear threats. Michaelis argues that Eleanor's story illuminates the American character and demonstrates how freedom remains a choice we must actively make.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: America, United States
Period: 20th Century, 21st Century
720 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster