War and Peace: FDR's Final Odyssey: D-Day to Yalta, 1943-1945

by Nigel Hamilton

Overview

The “gripping and powerfully argued” final volume in the acclaimed 3-part biography of FDR at war—proving that he was the key strategist of WWII (New York Times Book Review).

Nigel Hamilton’s celebrated trilogy culminates with a story of triumph and tragedy. In the spring of 1944, FDR oversaw the historic success of the D-day landings he had championed, just as he was found to be mortally ill. Yet even in the face of his own mortality, Roosevelt was the architect of a victorious peace that he would not live to witness.

Using hitherto unpublished documents and interviews, Hamilton rewrites the famous account of World War II strategy given by Winston Churchill in his memoirs. Seventy-five years after the D-day landings we finally get to see, close-up and in dramatic detail, who was responsible for rescuing, and insisting upon, the great American-led invasion of France in June 1944, and why the invasion was led by Eisenhower.

As FDR’s D-day triumph turns to personal tragedy, we watch the course of the disease, and how the dying president attempted—at Hawaii, Quebec, and Yalta—to prepare the United Nations for an American-backed postwar world order. Now we know: even on his deathbed, FDR was the war’s great visionary.

“A first-class, lens-changing work.” —James N. Mattis, former US secretary of defense

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544868540
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/19/2024
Series:	FDR at War , #3
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	1012
Sales rank:	101,997
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

NIGEL HAMILTON is a best-selling and award-winning biographer of President John F. Kennedy, General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery, and President Bill Clinton, among other subjects. His most recent book, The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941–1942, was long-listed for the National Book Award. He is a senior fellow at the McCormack Graduate School, University of Massachusetts, Boston, and splits his time between Boston, Massachusetts, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Table of Contents

Maps vii-ix

Prologue xi

Book 1

Part 1 Going to See Stalin

1 A Trip to the Mediterranean 5

2 The Meeting Is On 8

3 Maximum Secrecy 12

4 Setting Sail 17

5 Sheer Madness 20

6 Churchill's Improper Act 28

7 Torpedo! 33

8 A Pretty Serious Set-to 37

9 Marshall: Commander in Chief Against Germany 41

10 A Witches' Brew 46

11 Fullest Guidance 52

12 On Board the Iowa 58

13 In the Footsteps of Scipio and Hannibal 66

14 Two Pieces in a Chess Game 70

Part 2 Stonewall Roosevelt

15 Airy Visions 79

16 The American Sphinx 82

17 Churchill's "Indictment" 85

18 Showdown 89

Part 3 Triumph in Tehran

19 A Vision of the Postwar World 97

20 In the Russian Compound 101

21 The Grand Debate 106

22 A Real Scare 119

23 Impasse 124

24 Pricking Churchill's Bubble 126

25 War and Peace 135

Part 4 Who Will Command Overlord?

26 A Commander for Overlord 139

27 A Momentous Decision 143

28 A Bad Telegram 149

29 Perfidious Albion Redux 152

30 In the Field with Eisenhower 157

31 A Flap at Malta 161

32 Homeward Bound! 165

33 The Odyssey Is Over 169

Part 5 In Sickness and in Health

34 Churchill's Resurrection 177

35 In the Pink at Hyde Park 181

36 Sick 190

37 Anzio 195

38 The President's Unpleasant Attitude 202

39 Crimes Against Humanity 208

40 Late Love 214

41 In the Last Stages of Consumption 220

Part 6 D-Day

42 "This Attack Will Decide the War" 231

43 Simplicity of Purpose 238

44 The Hobcaw Barony 245

45 A Dual-Purpose Plan 252

46 D-day 256

47 The Deciding Dice of War 264

48 Architect of Victory 269

49 To Be, or Not to Be 273

Book 2

Part 7 The July Plot

50 A Soldier of Mankind 281

51 Missouri Compromise 286

52 The July Plot 291

Part 8 Hawaii

53 War in the Pacific 303

54 Deus ex Machina 311

55 Slow Torture 314

56 In the Examination Room 319

57 A Terrible Mistake 327

Part 9 Quebec

58 A Redundant Conference 333

59 The Complete Setting for a Novel 337

60 Two Sick Men 343

61 Churchill's Imperial Wars 347

62 A Stab in the Armpit 352

63 The Morgenthau Plan 359

64 Beyond the Dreams of Avarice 365

65 The President Is Gaga 368

Part 10 Yalta

66 Outward Bound 375

67 Light of the President's Fading Life 381

68 Aboard the USS Quincy 388

69 Hardly in This World 393

70 "A Pretty Extraordinary Achievement" 398

71 One Ultimate Goal 404

72 In the Land of the Czars 407

73 The Atom Bomb 412

74 Riviera of Hades 417

75 Russian Military Cooperation 420

76 Making History 423

77 A Silent President 428

78 Kennan's Warning 431

79 A World Security Organization 436

80 Poland 438

81 Pulsus Alternans 443

82 The Prime Minister Goes Ballistic 445

83 The Yalta Communiqué 452

84 The End of Hitler's Dreams 458

Part 11 Warm Springs

85 King Odysseus 463

86 In the Well of Congress 466

87 Appeasers Become Warmongers 469

88 Mackenzie King's Last Visit 472

89 Operation Sunrise 480

90 No More Barbarossas! 484

91 The End 491

Acknowledgments 499

Photo Credits 503

Notes 505

Index 557

Editorial Reviews

06/01/2019

Drawing from primary documents that President Franklin D. Roosevelt planned to use to write his memoirs, as well as diaries from people close to the major figures involved in planning D-Day and the end of World War II, Hamilton presents the final installment of his bibliographic trilogy, after The Mantle of Command and Commander in Chief, tracing an engaging and eye-opening series of events from the Tehran Summit through the Yalta Conference and finally Roosevelt's untimely death in 1945. Challenging what is conventionally and popularly known about the final political moves of the war through Churchill's memoirs, the book shows how intimately involved Roosevelt was in coordinating military plans, handpicking leaders, and lobbying for maneuvers to help end the war, even when faced with extreme opposition and suspicion from Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Providing more context about the planning of D-Day, this work makes an ideal companion to presidential historian Michael Beschloss's The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941–1945. VERDICT A fantastic read on its own or as part of the series for anyone interested in World War II political history or presidential memoirs.—Elan Ward, Arizona Western Coll., Yuma

Library Journal

War and Peace is the third and final volume in Hamilton's "F.D.R. at War" trilogy and certainly as gripping and powerfully argued as the first two…Hamilton's case for Roosevelt is a compelling one. Even in decline, the president had a vision that eluded others, including his closest partner…To Hamilton, Churchill's inspiration was no match for Roosevelt's sagacity, his stirring speeches no substitute for the American's strategic brilliance. Roosevelt was the architect and engineer who translated Churchill's grandiloquence into a plan for victory. The Allies did fight on the beaches, as Churchill once memorably vowed, but it fell to Franklin Roosevelt to make sure they were the right beaches.

The New York Times Book Review - Peter Baker

04/08/2019

Hamilton (Commander in Chief: FDR’s Battle with Churchill) closes out his trilogy focusing on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s role in WWII with this thorough and deliberate recounting of the final months of Roosevelt’s life, during which he suffered through increasingly poor health while leading the U.S. toward the end of the war. Hamilton aims “not only to chart with fresh clarity how dire was his affliction, but how exactly it affected his decisions and once masterly performance as commander in chief of the Western Allies.” Hamilton shows how Roosevelt “held the feet of the British to the D-Day fire” during the 1943 Tehran meetings, when Churchill began to doubt the war strategy prior to meeting with Stalin. Returning from that success, Roosevelt’s health took a turn for the worse; what first seemed to be a bout of flu was more serious cardiac complications. While ill, he won an unprecedented fourth term as president, rekindled an affair with Lucy Rutherfurd, and met again with Stalin and Churchill in Yalta to plan for a postwar world order, including the founding of the United Nations. The depth of coverage of these 17 months may be more than some readers desire, but it vividly recreates FDR’s decline and makes his accomplishments all the more impressive. Like its predecessors in the trilogy, this volume will reward readers of WWII and presidential history. Illus. (May)

Publishers Weekly

War and Peace is the third and final volume in Hamilton’s “F.D.R. at War” trilogy and certainly as gripping and powerfully argued as the first two . . . Hamilton’s case for Roosevelt is a compelling one. Even in decline, the president had a vision that eluded others, including his closest partner [Churchill].”
—The New York Times Book Review
 
“If history belongs to the best and latest writer, Nigel Hamilton has won the war for Roosevelt’s legacy from Churchill.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“A first class, lens-changing work.”
—James N. Mattis, former United States Secretary of Defense

“Thorough and deliberate...vividly recreates FDR’s decline and makes his accomplishments all the more impressive. Like its predecessors in the trilogy, this volume will reward readers of WWII and presidential history.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Significant study . . . of considerable interest to students of presidential and American military history.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“With deft storytelling and impeccable scholarship Nigel Hamilton completes his essential trilogy of FDR and World War II with a bang. War and Peace is a masterful reevaluation of D-Day, Hitler's demise, and the Yalta Conference. A stunning achievement!”
—Douglas Brinkley, author of Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America
 
“On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of D-Day, War and Peace is the dramatic culmination of Nigel Hamilton’s magnificent trilogy of FDR’s wartime leadership as commander in chief. It is also a vivid example of the critical importance of presidential leadership in times of national crisis. This sweeping narrative of Roosevelt’s triumphs and the tragedy of his untimely death in 1945 is history and biography at its very finest.”
—Carlo D’Este, author of Patton: A Genius for War and Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945


PRAISE FOR COMMANDER IN CHIEF

“Ably dramatizes Roosevelt's wranglings with Churchill during World War II ... Provocative ... It is stimulating to follow Hamilton as he lays out his argument.”
—Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times Book Review

“Superb.”
—Fareed Zakaria

“A detailed look at Franklin Roosevelt's role in the Allied strategy midway through World War II, with an emphasis on his relations with Winston Churchill. Hamilton shows Roosevelt's clear vision of how to win the war and how to create a postwar society that would prevent such wars from recurring . . . [COMMANDER IN CHIEF] presents a convincing portrait of its main subject, strengthening readers' confidence in the author's conclusions. The book is strongly pro-Roosevelt, but Hamilton gives a solid inside view of the strategic thinking that went into the campaign against Hitler as America laid the groundwork for the D-Day invasion the following year.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)


PRAISE FOR MANTLE OF COMMAND

“The Mantle of Command is splendid: It’s the memoir Roosevelt didn’t get to write.”
—New York Times Book Review

“Masterly.”
—Wall Street Journal

“FDR has frequently been underestimated as a military leader, yielding, in the historical imagination, to George Marshall and Winston Churchill, among others. Nigel Hamilton attacks this view with his characteristic verve, portraying a president with the reins of war fully, if often subtly, in his hands. The conventional wisdom will never be the same.”
—H.W. Brands, author of Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Nigel Hamilton’s Mantle of Command is a stirring and noteworthy book about Roosevelt’s crucial role as commander-in-chief during World War II. Hamilton writes with insight, passion, and a great grasp of history. I believe this book will become the standard by which other books about FDR’s role in World War II will be measured.”
—Carlo D’Este, author of Patton: A Genius for War and Warlord: A Life of Churchill at War, 1874–1945

“This is not the Roosevelt (or Churchill) you'd expect. From the start, an aggressive, in-charge FDR emerges from a wonderful weaving of established scholarship and the fascinating bits and pieces that make history live. Churchill is an inspirational nag, with a busy, unfocused strategic vision. A key entry into the ongoing debate over who made grand strategy in the early war years—Roosevelt or Churchill?”
—Warren F. Kimball, author of Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War

“Nigel Hamilton in Mantle of Command presents a very different wartime Franklin Delano Roosevelt than the one we are used to seeing. Whether or not one agrees with all his conclusions, Hamilton clearly shows that FDR was an extremely strong and effective commander-in-chief. This volume should go a long way to dispelling popular myths about Roosevelt as a naïve and weak war leader.”
—Mark Stoler, editor of the George C. Marshall Papers & Professor Emeritus of History, University of Vermont

“Nigel Hamilton has written a spirited and thoughtful ‘revisionist’ study of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as commander-in-chief during the first phase of U.S. involvement in the Second World War. Hamilton’s narrative skill brings alive the human dramas, logistic hurdles, and strategic debates to show how FDR’s indispensable drive and forward-looking leadership tamed his own ‘team of rivals’ and set the United States and its Allies on the road to victory over the Axis. The books enlivens the often murky worlds of bureaucratic struggle and military detail to demonstrate how important it was for the United States to ‘get it right’ early in the war and how FDR accomplished this.”
—Michael Schaller, author of Douglas MacArthur & Regents Professor of History, University of Arizona

From the Publisher

2019-03-17
The final installment of the biographer's significant study of Franklin Roosevelt's sine qua non leadership in World War II.

It seems safe to say that, following his Commander in Chief: FDR'S Battle with Churchill, 1943 (2016), Hamilton is not Winston Churchill's greatest admirer. As this volume recounts frequently and at length, Churchill often attempted to assert British leadership of the tripartite alliance with the United States and the Soviet Union, especially by pressing not for a cross-Channel invasion of Europe but instead for a push up through Italy, "an alternative Mediterranean strategy" that had the virtue, for Churchill, of taking place in a theater that was largely in the British sphere to begin with. Churchill's strategy endangered one of D-Day's lesser-known effects: The Western Allies' pledge to open a second front in continental Europe would in turn produce a deepening of the war in the East—so Stalin promised, at any rate, while nursing a private bitterness that the Soviet Union had borne the brunt of the fight. Meanwhile, Germany exploited the weaknesses that emerged by floating hints of making a separate peace, with Joseph Goebbels noting in his diary that "Americans have only a secondary interest in the war in Europe and are only inspired by the war against Japan." Even so, and against the odds, the Allies held together, an achievement that Hamilton credits to FDR's unwavering leadership even in the face of Churchill's maneuvering—and even though FDR, by the author's account, knew that he was dying and still pressed on. The fact that those German offers were floated in March 1945, however—no secret from Hitler but a deliberate strategy—increased the Soviet mistrust of the Western powers and, Hamilton suggests, may have "presaged the Cold War" that followed the defeat of the Axis powers.

Of considerable interest to students of presidential and American military history, though likely to court criticism from the Churchill camp.

Kirkus Reviews