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The Washington war : FDR's inner circle and the politics of power that won World War II / James Lacey.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Bantam Books, [2019]Copyright date: ©2019Edition: First editionDescription: xxii, 567 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780345547583
  • 0345547586
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Inching toward war -- Wars are won in the details -- Roosevelt finds a war consigliere -- Early maneuvers -- Hot dogs at Hyde Park -- First salvos -- The State Department at war ... with itself -- Blitzkrieg -- Roosevelt's general -- A reluctant industrial complex -- The sphinx -- Republicans seize the War Department -- Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars -- Business gets its field marshals -- Bankrolling Britain -- Colors become rainbows -- Hamlet finds an admiral -- Drang Nach Osten -- Rendezvous at sea -- Production battles -- War in the Pacific -- A city at war -- Churchill comes to town -- Arcadia conference -- Bureaucratic road kill -- A bitter season -- Joint chiefs -- Striking back -- Deserting the bear -- Stopping the tide -- On track -- The great feasibility dispute -- No rubber, no war -- Torch -- New hands at the helm -- Byrnes cast upon troubled waters -- A non-united front -- Casablanca -- Man-and woman-power -- The Jewish question -- Auld lang syne -- Storm clouds over the alliance -- Showdown in Quebec -- The Big-3 in Tehran -- The grind -- Election 1944 -- surveying the field -- Pacific overtures -- The Morgenthau Plan -- The champ -- Yalta and the end.
Summary: "A Team of Rivals for World War II, here is the inside story of how FDR and the towering personalities around him waged war in the corridors of Washington D.C. to secure ultimate victory on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. Faced with the unprecedented challenges posed by a global war against entrenched and implacable totalitarian forces, Franklin Delano Roosevelt surrounded himself with a colorful group of strong-minded counselors, including Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, power broker James Byrnes, Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King, the ubiquitous Harry Hopkins, and many others. Given these forceful personalities and their equal dedication to the war effort, vicious clashes and Machiavellian maneuvering were inevitable. The outcome at many critical junctures turned on a dime. With unprecedented scope and intimacy, based on exhaustive research and newly discovered sources, The Washington War by renowned military historian James Lacey delivers fresh insights into FDR's innermost circles--and the fascinating behind-the-scenes machinations and power plays that won the greatest war in history"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 973.917 L131 Available 33111009163151
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A Team of Rivals for World War II--the inside story of how FDR and the towering personalities around him waged war in the corridors of Washington, D.C., to secure ultimate victory on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific.

The Washington War is the story of how the Second World War was fought and won in the capital's halls of power--and how the United States, which in December 1941 had a nominal army and a decimated naval fleet, was able in only thirty months to fling huge forces onto the European continent and shortly thereafter shatter Imperial Japan's Pacific strongholds.

Three quarters of a century after the overwhelming defeat of the totalitarian Axis forces, the terrifying, razor-thin calculus on which so many critical decisions turned has been forgotten--but had any of these debates gone the other way, the outcome of the war could have been far different: The army in August 1941, about to be disbanded, saved by a single vote. Production plans that would have delayed adequate war matériel for years after Pearl Harbor, circumvented by one uncompromising man's courage and drive. The delicate ballet that precluded a separate peace between Stalin and Hitler. The almost-adopted strategy to stage D-Day at a fatally different time and place. It was all a breathtakingly close-run thing, again and again.

Renowned historian James Lacey takes readers behind the scenes in the cabinet rooms, the Pentagon, the Oval Office, and Hyde Park, and at the pivotal conferences--Campobello Island, Casablanca, Tehran--as these disputes raged. Here are colorful portraits of the great figures--and forgotten geniuses--of the day: New Dealers versus industrialists, political power brokers versus the generals, Churchill and the British high command versus the U.S. chiefs of staff, innovators versus entrenched bureaucrats . . . with the master manipulator, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at the center, setting his brawling patriots one against the other and promoting and capitalizing on the furious turf wars.

Based on years of research and extensive, previously untapped archival resources, The Washington War is the first integrated, comprehensive chronicle of how all these elements--and towering personalities--clashed and ultimately coalesced at each vital turning point, the definitive account of Washington at real war and the titanic political and bureaucratic infighting that miraculously led to final victory.

"A Team of Rivals for World War II, here is the inside story of how FDR and the towering personalities around him waged war in the corridors of Washington D.C. to secure ultimate victory on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. Faced with the unprecedented challenges posed by a global war against entrenched and implacable totalitarian forces, Franklin Delano Roosevelt surrounded himself with a colorful group of strong-minded counselors, including Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, power broker James Byrnes, Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King, the ubiquitous Harry Hopkins, and many others. Given these forceful personalities and their equal dedication to the war effort, vicious clashes and Machiavellian maneuvering were inevitable. The outcome at many critical junctures turned on a dime. With unprecedented scope and intimacy, based on exhaustive research and newly discovered sources, The Washington War by renowned military historian James Lacey delivers fresh insights into FDR's innermost circles--and the fascinating behind-the-scenes machinations and power plays that won the greatest war in history"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 479-538) and index.

Inching toward war -- Wars are won in the details -- Roosevelt finds a war consigliere -- Early maneuvers -- Hot dogs at Hyde Park -- First salvos -- The State Department at war ... with itself -- Blitzkrieg -- Roosevelt's general -- A reluctant industrial complex -- The sphinx -- Republicans seize the War Department -- Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars -- Business gets its field marshals -- Bankrolling Britain -- Colors become rainbows -- Hamlet finds an admiral -- Drang Nach Osten -- Rendezvous at sea -- Production battles -- War in the Pacific -- A city at war -- Churchill comes to town -- Arcadia conference -- Bureaucratic road kill -- A bitter season -- Joint chiefs -- Striking back -- Deserting the bear -- Stopping the tide -- On track -- The great feasibility dispute -- No rubber, no war -- Torch -- New hands at the helm -- Byrnes cast upon troubled waters -- A non-united front -- Casablanca -- Man-and woman-power -- The Jewish question -- Auld lang syne -- Storm clouds over the alliance -- Showdown in Quebec -- The Big-3 in Tehran -- The grind -- Election 1944 -- surveying the field -- Pacific overtures -- The Morgenthau Plan -- The champ -- Yalta and the end.

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