Rating: 
Summary: A friendship forged in war
Review: This is an extremely informative and well-written book about the wartime friendship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston S. Churchill. The author makes the point that, were it not for this close bond between the two great leaders of the Western democracies, the entire history of World War II, and the subsequent peace, might have been quite different. The book shows the initial, desperate courting of the American president by the Prime Minister of an embattled nation, with the result that a very close, personal relationship sprang up between them. The author does not gloss over the imperfections of the men, particularly the way Roosevelt, later in the war, took to belittling Churchill in front of Stalin to impress the Russians. The Yalta Conference, while it does not occupy a lot of print pages, does show Roosevelt trying to cajole the Russians into his point of view, with the intention of getting them to confront the Japanese to save additional American casualties, which Churchill didn't appear to realize (possibly because he was not informed of this strategy by FDR), being more concerned with the preservation of the British Empire and its overseas possessions. There is the belief by the author that, had Roosevelt lived, he would have taken as strong a stand against Communism as Churchill, and his argument is fairly persuasive. All in all, this is a book well worth reading, as it casts an interesting light on a friendship that saved the world from tyranny.
Rating:
Summary: The friendship that made our world possible
Review: This is the story of a human and a political friendship. A seemingly unlikely friendship between a Tory Prime Minister and a Progressive President. A friendship between an extroverted, warm human being and an introverted, many layered and often secretive man. A friendship between two men who lived in a time not so very different from our own, when certainties were few, enemies seemed to spring up like mushrooms, and the whole world in danger.Their friendship did much to save that world. It was a friendship that made D-Day possible; and it was in part thanks to that friendship that Winston and Franklin made a joint decision to avenge, not save the victims of the Holocaust. Their decisions saved and cost millions of lives. They were two friends, doing their best in a world plunged into darkness. And they brought it out again-together. Winston Churchill led Britain when that island stood alone against Hitler for one year; Franklin Roosevelt patiently prodded an isolationist nation into accepting the responsibility that comes with power. And in the end, they made a "world that is for many a better one than existed before" (283). Thanks to their efforts, when "an American President and a British prime minister [today] walk through the woods of Camp David, or confer on a transatlantic telephone, they are working in the style and in the shadow of Roosevelt and Churchill. [They are reaffirming] the Anglo-American alliance [that] has been the bedrock of global order for decades" (366). A bedrock Winston and Franklin created in those fraught years of a world war.
Rating:
Summary: Clever Examination of THE Friendship of the 20th Century
Review: Yes, Meacham is writing about two of the most written-about (justifiably so) figures of the past century; but this is fresh and original writing. Instead of repeating the facts and dates of so many biographies of these two great men, the author examines their friendship, the psychology of that friendship, and how their relationship shaped world history. Meacham clearly did exhaustive research for this book; the result is a work that is sure to be the definitive volume on this very interesting and significant relationship. I cannot recommend this wonderful volume highly enough to any and all interested readers.
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