Mr. Book just finished America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh In The Shadow Of War, by H.W. Brands.
H. W. Brands is a notable American historian and this is the 13th book of his that I have read. Of the previous 12, seven of them received an A or A+. Unfortunately, this did not turn into the eighth.
This book is about the battle raged between Franklin Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh over the United States should get involved in World War II. When the subject was FDR, Brands did a very good job and those pages are highly recommended.
But, when it came to Lindbergh, he dropped the ball. Brands portrayed Lindbergh as merely an inexperienced, naïve individual who did not fully comprehend his position. It was almost an attempt to whitewash Lindbergh’s opposition to the war and opposition to opposing the Nazis as a purely isolationist viewpoint rather than the fact that Lindbergh’s opposition was based on him being a Nazi-sympathizer and anti-Semite. There were a couple of pages worth, towards the end, where the book quoted newspaper accounts attacking Lindbergh on these grounds. But, that was out of character of the tone of the rest of book.
The book also almost completely ignores the German’s work towards the America First movement. He does very briefly allude to it, but it is probably not more than about a total of two pages worth out of the entire book.
Because of these failures, I can only give this book a B.
Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a B equates to 3 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads.
Mr. Book finished reading this on November 15, 2024.
