Final Victory: FDR’s Extraordinary World War II Presidential Campaign
About this audiobook
When the 1944 presidential election campaign geared up late that spring, Franklin D. Roosevelt had already been in office longer than any other president. Sensing likely weakness, the Republicans mounted an energetic and expensive campaign, hitting hard at FDR's liberal domestic policies and the ongoing cost of World War II. Despite gravely deteriorating health, FDR and his feisty running mate, the unexpected Harry Truman, campaigned vigorously against young governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York and old-line Ohio governor John Bricker. Roosevelt's charm and wit, as well as the military successes in Europe and the Pacific, contributed to his sweeping electoral victory. But the hard-fought campaign would soon take its toll on America's only four-term president.
Preeminent historian and biographer Stanley Weintraub recaptures FDR's striking last campaign and the year's momentous events, from the rainy city streets where Roosevelt, his legs paralyzed by polio since 1922, rode in an open car, to the battlefronts where the commander-in-chief's forces were closing in on Hitler and Hirohito. Weintraub, as he has done in all his biographies, brings to life the man and his times, capturing those small but telling details that inform and delight.The result is unforgettable.
About the author
Stanley Weintraub is a National Book Award finalist and a former Guggenheim fellow. A professor emeritus of arts and humanities at Penn State University, he is the author of numerous histories and biographies, including Silent Night and 11 Days in December, and is an expert on George Bernard Shaw. He lives in Newark, Delaware.
Michael Kramer has narrated over 100 audiobooks for many bestselling authors. He read all of Robert Jordan’s epic Wheel of Time fantasy-adventure series as well as Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive series. He received AudioFile magazine's Earphones Award for the Kent Family series by John Jakes and for Alan Fulsom's The Day After Tomorrow. Known for his “spot-on character portraits and accents, and his resonant, well-tempered voice” (AudioFile), his work includes recording books for the Library of Congress’s Talking Books program for the blind and physically handicapped. Kramer also works as an actor in the Washington, D.C. area, where he lives with his wife, Jennifer Mendenhall (a.k.a. Kate Reading), and their two children. He has appeared as Lord Rivers in Richard III at The Shakespeare Theatre, Howie/Merlin in The Kennedy Center’s production of The Light of Excalibur, Sam Riggs and Frederick Savage in Woody Allen’s Central Park West/Riverside Drive, and Dr. Qari Shah in Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul at Theatre J.
