The Franklin D. Roosevelt
Presidential Library and Museum
will present an
author talk and book signing with
David B. Woolner author of
THE LAST 100 DAYS:
FDR AT WAR AND AT PEACE
Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 7:00 p.m.
Henry A. Wallace Center at the
FDR Presidential Library and Home
HYDE PARK, NY -- The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum will present an author talk and book signing with
David B. Woolner author of THE LAST 100 DAYS: FDR AT WAR AND AT PEACE, on Thursday, December 14, 2017. The program will begin at 7:00 p.m. in Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home. Following the presentation, Woolner will be available to sign copies of his book.
This is a free public event but registration is required. Visit www.fdrlibrary.org or CLICK HERE to register.
Franklin Roosevelt ranks among the most important and effective chief executives in American history. Yet while much is known about his famous first "100 Days," against which all presidents since his time have been judged, we understand less about the significance of his final months in office.
In
THE LAST 100 DAYS: FDR AT WAR AND AT PEACE Roosevelt scholar David B. Woolner paints a detailed portrait of the final 100 days of FDR's life and presidency. Here we see how FDR -- a man of sixty plus years in a precarious state of health -- coped with the day-to-day demands of office during one of the most critical periods in American history. His reduced capacity for work meant that he had to set strict personal and public priorities, and the decisions he made illuminate much about what mattered most to him.
Woolner argues that FDR foresaw the globalized world to come and the central place of the US within it. Above all else, this made the establishment of the United Nations and securing the American public's support for the fledgling organization imperative. But FDR also pursued a number of other less well-known initiatives that he was never able to fulfill, including the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. While balancing these and other urgent matters, FDR tried his best to adhere to the rest-regimen that his two primary physicians insisted was critical to his survival. He understood that he was ill, as did those closest to him, but the standard line from his doctors to the public was that he "was in fine health for a man his age."
Drawing upon previously untapped sources, including a confidential memo from a physician who examined FDR in 1944, newly declassified records from the Office of Strategic Services, and a recently constructed day-to-day calendar of the president's activities and contacts, Woolner depicts FDR as a much diminished man, often near the point of physical exhaustion, yet determined to press on and achieve the goals he set for himself, his nation, and the world. These final 100 days set in motion some of the most important and long-lasting consequences of FDR's transformative presidency, which fundamentally changed the way American citizens view the role of government, as well as America's role in the world.
THE LAST 100 DAYS pulls back the curtain on the private life of FDR, and offers an unprecedented look at how he made his momentous final policy decisions.
David B. Woolner is a senior fellow and resident historian at the Roosevelt Institute and a professor of history at Marist College. He lives in Rhinebeck, New York.
