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Title details for Roosevelt and Stalin by Susan Butler - Available

Roosevelt and Stalin

Portrait of a Partnership

by Susan Butler
George Guidall
Audiobook
3 of 3 copies available
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3 of 3 copies available
Susan Butler's brilliantly readable book firmly places FDR where he belongs, as the American president engaged most directly in diplomacy and strategy, who not only had an ambitious plan for the postwar world, but had the strength, ambition and personal charm to overcome Churchill's reluctance and Stalin's suspicion to bring about what was, in effect, an American peace, and to avoid the disastrous consequences that followed the botched peace of Versailles in 1919. It is at once a long overdue tribute to FDR and his vision, and a serious work of history that reads like a novel. I would rank it next to Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919, and casts new light on the character and war aims of Stalin, Churchill and FDR himself. Brava!

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 25, 2015

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781490658650
      • File size: 627729 KB
      • Duration: 21:47:46

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      George Guidall's voice--slightly gravelly, well aged, cultured but genial--is immediately likable, and he brings intelligence and expressiveness to his narration of this intensely detailed, sometimes revisionist, history of Russo-American relations in WWII. But the performance does have its flaws. His pace is a beat slow to start, though he picks it up admirably. His sentence modulations tend to fall into patterns that can become distractingly repetitous. Unexpected pauses and over-energized quotations add further distractions. Still, the reading is engaging enough to carry listeners through even the occasional numbingly detailed accounts of meetings of the war leaders. W.M. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 5, 2015
      Butler, editor of My Dear Mr. Stalin, a collection of correspondences between F.D.R. and Stalin, focuses on the complex negotiations that F.D.R. orchestrated in order to create a version of Woodrow Wilson’s failed League of Nations, in this illuminating and exhaustive book. F.D.R. had been developing a proposal for the United Nations as early as 1939, but in order to succeed where Wilson failed, he understood that he needed the cooperation of the world’s other rising power: Russia. Earning Stalin’s trust required F.D.R. to carefully manage the wartime alliance among America, the U.S.S.R., and Great Britain, a three-way relationship rife with tension and distrust thanks to the antipathy between Churchill and Stalin. What’s most surprising in Butler’s narrative is the warmth that blossomed between Stalin and Roosevelt: a partnership born out of strategic necessity, which transformed into a mutual respect instrumental in winning the war and establishing the United Nations. Despite unnecessary minutiae, Butler effectively demonstrates that there was no greater mediator and champion of peace than Roosevelt, whose sudden death in the final months WWII robbed the world of perhaps the man who could have averted the Cold War.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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