No Ordinary Time

Among historians, we know there are few better as academics and storytellers than Goodwin. I love her writing style, and the coverage of both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt is unmatched. Small wonder that it was a NYT bestseller! I think any reader would enjoy this magisterial work. 

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin provides a brilliant account of the American home front just before and during World War II, with Franklin and Elenor Roosevelt as the central characters. Based on extensive historical research, the book tells the story of a pre-war isolationist America transforming into a world power by the end of the conflict. The book was the 1995 Pulitzer Prize Winner in History.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is one of our most renowned presidential historians.

In this book, which won the Pulitzer Prize in History, Goodwin provides an engaging dual biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II. I also found her portrait of American life during the war to be both fascinating and panoramic.

She covers everything from race relations to rationing and labor strikes to women in war industries (and much, much more). 

Goodwin is one of our preeminent historians. A great narrator and a researcher par excellence. The details really matter. No other president served the country for four terms; no other president served during both a near-total economic collapse and a devastating global war; and no other president had such an activist, engaged wife. Although the Roosevelts’ marriage was deeply troubled (FDR’s attraction to other women…), they decided to stay together no matter what because they were, in the end, not just a married couple but a political team. Zooming in on the war years (which were FDR’s final years), we… show more.