Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume II, The Defining Years, 1933-1938

Historians, politicians, feminists, critics, and reviewers everywhere have praised Blanche Wiesen Cook's monumental Eleanor Roosevelt as the definitive portrait of this towering female figure of the twentieth century. Now in her long-awaited, majestic second volume, Cook takes readers through the tumultuous era of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the gathering storms of World War II, the years of the Roosevelts' greatest challenges and finest achievements.

In her remarkably engaging narrative, Cook gives us the complete Eleanor Roosevelt: an adventurous, romantic woman, a devoted wife and mother, and a visionary policymaker and social activist who often took unpopular stands, counter to her husband's policies, especially on issues such as racial justice and women's rights. A biography of scholarship and daring, it is a book for all readers of American history.

"Fascinating . . . Cook's portrait of a woman in the thick of things during the hardest of times . . . will stand as definitive." --The Washington Post

"Engrossing . . . Cook is especially good at probing Roosevelt's psychological state and explaining her many complex relationships with friends and family."--The Boston Sunday Globe (front page)

"Cook gets at the tender, sprightly creature behind the starchy, strident image." --Maureen Dowd, The New York Times Book Review (front page)