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All American presidents are commanders in chief by
law. Few perform as such in practice. In Roosevelt’s
Centurions, distinguished historian Joseph E.
Persico reveals how, during World War II, Franklin D.
Roosevelt seized the levers of wartime power like no
president since Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
Declaring himself “Dr. Win-the-War,” FDR assumed the
role of strategist in chief, and, though surrounded by
star-studded generals and admirals, he made clear who
was running the war. FDR was a hands-on war leader,
involving himself in everything from choosing bomber
targets to planning naval convoys to the design of
landing craft. Persico explores whether his strategic
decisions, including his insistence on the Axis powers’
unconditional surrender, helped end or may have
prolonged the war.
Taking us inside the
Allied war councils, the author reveals how the
president brokered strategy with contentious allies,
particularly the iron-willed Winston Churchill; rallied
morale on the home front; and handpicked a team of
proud, sometimes prickly warriors who, he believed,
could fight a global war. Persico’s history offers
indelible portraits of the outsize figures who roused
the “sleeping giant” that defeated the Axis war machine:
the dutiful yet independent-minded George C. Marshall,
charged with rebuilding an army whose troops trained
with broomsticks for rifles, eggs for hand grenades;
Dwight Eisenhower, an unassuming Kansan elevated from
obscurity to command of the greatest fighting force ever
assembled; the vainglorious Douglas MacArthur; and the
bizarre battlefield genius George S. Patton. Here too
are less widely celebrated military leaders whose
contributions were just as critical: the irascible,
dictatorial navy chief, Ernest King; the acerbic army
advisor in China, “Vinegar” Joe Stilwell; and Henry H.
“Hap” Arnold, who zealously preached the gospel of
modern air power. The Roosevelt who emerges from these
pages is a wartime chess master guiding America’s armed
forces to a victory that was anything but
foreordained.
What are the qualities we
look for in a commander in chief? In an era of renewed
conflict, when Americans are again confronting the
questions that FDR faced—about the nature and exercise
of global power—Roosevelt’s Centurions is a
timely and revealing examination of what it takes to be
a wartime leader in a freewheeling, complicated, and
tumultuous democracy.
Praise for Roosevelt’s
Centurions
“FDR’s centurions were
my heroes and guides. Now Joe Persico has written the
best account of those leaders I've ever read.”—Colin
L. Powell
“Benefiting from his years of
studying Franklin Roosevelt and his times, Joseph
Persico has brought us a briskly paced story with much
wisdom and new insights on FDR, his military liege men,
World War II, and political and military
leadership.”—Michael Beschloss, author of
Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed
America 1789–1989
“Long wars
demand long books, but these are 550 pages of lively
prose by a good writer who knows his subject. . . . A
fine, straightforward politics-and-great-men
history.”—Kirkus
Reviews
“Persico makes a
persuasive case that FDR was clearly in charge of the
most important decisions of the American war
plan.”—The Washington Times
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