The File: A Personal History
Author: Timothy Garton Ash
"Eloquent, aware and scrupulous . . . a rich and instructive examination of the Cold War past." —The New York Times
In 1978 a romantic young Englishman took up residence in Berlin to see what that divided city could teach him about tyranny and freedom. Fifteen years later Timothy Garton Ash—who was by then famous for his reportage of the downfall of communism in Central Europe—returned. This time he had come to look at a file that bore the code-name "Romeo." The file had been compiled by the Stasi, the East German secret police, with the assistance of dozens of informers. And it contained a meticulous record of Garton Ash's earlier life in Berlin.
In this memoir, Garton Ash describes what it was like to rediscover his younger self through the eyes of the Stasi, and then to go on to confront those who actually informed against him to the secret police. Moving from document to remembrance, from the offices of British intelligence to the living rooms of retired Stasi officers, The File is a personal narrative as gripping, as disquieting, and as morally provocative as any fiction by George Orwell or Graham Greene. And it is all true.
"In this painstaking, powerful unmasking of evil, the wretched face of tyranny is revealed." —Philadelphia Inquirer
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt (The American Presidents Series)
Author: Roy Jenkins
A masterly work by the New York Times bestselling author of Churchill and GladstoneA protean figure and a man of massive achievement, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only man to be elected to the presidency more than twice. In a ranking of chief executives, no more than three of his predecessors could truly be placed in contention with his standing, and of his successors, there are so far none. In acute, stylish prose, Roy Jenkins tackles all of the nuances and intricacies of FDR's character. He was a skilled politician with astounding flexibility; he oversaw an incomparable mobilization of American industrial and military effort; and, all the while, he aroused great loyalty and dazzled those around him with his personal charm. Despite several setbacks and one apparent catastrophe, his life was buoyed by the influence of Eleanor, who was not only a wife but an adviser and one of the twentieth century's greatest political reformers. Nearly complete before Jenkins's death in January 2003, this volume was finished by historian Richard Neustadt.
The New York Times
Breezy and brief, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is a small-scale biography of an outsize personality, and succeeds brilliantly. The joy that Jenkins takes in Roosevelt, and the reformers and rogues that surround him, is manifest, and difficult not to share. — Jeff Shesol
Publishers Weekly
Distinguished British historian Jenkins (author of the recent bestselling biography Churchill) died in January 2003. He left this brief biography of FDR for Arthur Schlesinger's American Presidents series largely complete. Now published with a conclusion written by another eminent historian, Richard Neustadt, the volume comprises a concise yet coherent and quite reliable summation of Roosevelt's fascinating life and presidency. Jenkins captures FDR in all his contradictions. As the author astutely notes, although a Knickerbocker squire from New York's Hudson Valley-arguably the most Europe-oriented part of the United States-FDR was "peculiarly successful at transcending geography and uniting the continent." Whomever he met, he charmed, be it some simple farmer or Winston Churchill. But the one he charmed before most others, his fifth cousin and spouse, Eleanor Roosevelt, came to view him cynically. She recognized that intermixed with his enormous capacity and willingness to do good, there was a certain self-serving casualness that permitted numerous petty lies perpetrated on friends, allies and family. Elegantly describing FDR's course through a score of personal and political ordeals, Jenkins astutely shows us the man in all his many incarnations: the confident son of privilege who morphed into a wry, young politico on the rise; the startled victim, for whom all things had previously come so easily, hitting the brick wall of polio and fighting back, strenuously leading his broken country out of its two great 20th-century crises: the Great Depression and World War II. (Nov. 4) Forecast: This is the short alternative for readers unwilling to take on Conrad Black's 1,300-page biography (Forecasts, Sept. 22) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Foreign Affairs
This brilliant short biography provides more insight and reward than many Roosevelt biographies ten times its length. Jenkins, who died in the final stages of completing the manuscript, was ideally suited to appreciate the longest-serving U.S. president. As a master biographer, political practitioner, and partisan of the same Anglo-American liberal tradition that shaped Roosevelt, Jenkins had the intellectual and political background to understand F.D.R.; as a foreigner, he was able to view Roosevelt's accomplishments and failures from a judicious distance. The light touch and deft style that Jenkins employed when treating even the weightiest matters illuminate rather than distract: to call Eleanor Roosevelt's childhood circumstances "a House of Mirth atmosphere" is to say more, and more economically, than most others who have written on the theme. The carefully selected facts and quotations in the book are memorable precisely because they are so spare. Jenkins' long biographies of statesmen such as Gladstone and Churchill showed that he was a master of the long form; his life of Roosevelt shows that his biographical talents, undiminished by age, did not require acres of paper to achieve their full effect.
Library Journal
More than half a century after Abraham Lincoln's presidency, the first best single volume biography of him was authored by Lord Charnwood (Godfrey Rathbone Benson), and now after only a slightly longer period, another certain classic on America's best president since Lincoln has been authored by another Englishman, Lord Black. The publication of this FDR biography is quite a feat since America's 32nd president served three times longer than its 16th president. A perspective that truly comprehends the global magnitude of America's two greatest chief executives may require the perspective from someone abroad. Author of two previous books and the chairman/CEO of Hollinger International, Inc. (publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times, Daily and Sunday Telegraph, the Spectator, and the Jerusalem Post), Black is a capable writer, able to sustain interest in a long narrative. However, his major achievement is putting FDR's leadership in both an American and an international perspective. He captures its prudential nature, always aiming for the middle ground between extremists at home (e.g., Huey Long and Douglas MacArthur) and modern ideological dictators abroad. The author clearly understands that FDR was the democratic alternative that made him the most important leader of the 20th century, surpassing the traditionalism of Winston Churchill. FDR's personal shortcomings are fully addressed, but Black shows that they did not undermine his political legacy. Both the general public and scholars will benefit from this highly readable account. An essential purchase for all libraries. Another British observer, Jenkins (Churchill), a Labor Party Member of Parliament and the author of 21 books, had nearly finished this short work on FDR when he died earlier this year. (Political scientist and Harvard professor Richard Neustadt completed it for him.) Jenkins's approach to FDR is generally positive. He notes that had FDR maintained the two-term tradition, he would have been regarded as only a nearly great president. Except for the British interest in social class and occasional comparisons to its leaders, this is a conventional introduction to FDR that political buffs and FDR fans will enjoy reading. Libraries with budget restraints are better served with the Black biography or with Patrick J. Maney's readable but more scholarly short biography, The Roosevelt Presence.-William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-To distill the life of Roosevelt into a book of less than 200 pages is a major challenge; to succeed in doing so without shortchanging readers is a true accomplishment. As president, FDR faced America's worst financial crisis and the world's most destructive war. He also influenced the larger trends of the 20th century, from the progressive movement of his younger days to the Cold War and the welfare state that followed him. Jenkins admirably describes his subject's background and development and outlines how Roosevelt dealt with the Great Depression and the Second World War. But Jenkins is not only an accomplished biographer, he was also one of the leading British politicians of the second half of the 20th century. His nationality gives him a perspective on FDR that would be difficult to obtain as an American. Likewise, his study of other great political leaders allows him to gain a broader view of Roosevelt as president. This is one of the best short biographies of Roosevelt imaginable.-Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
One of America's greatest presidents becomes a barely recognizable caricature. It's hard to imagine who the audience is supposed to be for this latest installment in the American Presidents series, presided over by Arthur Schlesinger. Of course, Jenkins (Churchill, 2001, etc.), who died earlier this year, had an unenviable task: to take the life of FDR—patrician, world leader, master politician—and condense it into fewer than 200 breezy pages. There's plenty to choose from. Roosevelt was the scion of one of the country's truest blue-blood families, and, strangely enough, the author seems most comfortable sketching this genteel Knickerbocker heritage. In describing the almost feudal atmosphere of the Hudson River Valley estates where FDR was raised, Jenkins points out how paradoxical it was that this man, "a product not of the heartland but of the extreme eastern edge and most Europe-centered part of America," would be so successful at "transcending geography and uniting the continent." Although permanently linked in the public mind, FDR and intellectual roustabout Teddy Roosevelt, whom FDR greatly admired and tried to emulate, were only distant cousins. Jenkins describes the halting and imperfect road that FDR took toward the White House, marked by such relatively low points as his undistinguished term as assistant secretary of the Navy and an unsuccessful vice-presidential candidacy in 1920. But even after FDR's election as New York governor and finally his ascendancy to the White House in 1932 (an office he would hold until his death in 1945) this life fails to take flight. Only in limning the chinks in the normally revered FDR's armor—especially in his less-than-romanticrelationship with wife Eleanor—does Jenkins manage to render any of it terribly interesting. Too skimpy to interest serious historians, too dull and stiff for general readers looking for a quick overview. (For the other descriptive extreme, see Conrad Black, above.)
Table of Contents:
| Editor's Note | xiii | |
| A Note on the Text | xvii | |
| 1. | Roosevelt Cousins | 1 |
| 2. | Portrait of a Marriage That Became Crippled | 22 |
| 3. | From Albany to the White House | 47 |
| 4. | The Exciting Ambiguities of the First Term | 66 |
| 5. | Setbacks: Political and Economic | 94 |
| 6. | Backing into War | 115 |
| 7. | The Hard-Fought Years: December 1941-July 1944 | 132 |
| 8. | Death on the Verge of Victory | 149 |
| Milestones | 171 | |
| Selected Bibliography | 175 | |
| Index | 179 |
