Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship
    Unavailable
    Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship
    Unavailable
    Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship
    Audiobook13 hours

    Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

    Written by Jon Meacham

    Narrated by Grover Gardner

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    The most complete portrait ever drawn of the complex emotional connection between two of history's towering leaders

    Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of "the Greatest Generation." In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II. It was a crucial friendship, and a unique one-a president and a prime minister spending enormous amounts of time together (113 days during the war) and exchanging nearly two thousand messages. Amid cocktails, cigarettes, and cigars, they met, often secretly, in places as far-flung as Washington, Hyde Park, Casablanca, and Teheran, talking to each other of war, politics, the burden of command, their health, their wives, and their children.

    Born in the nineteenth century and molders of the twentieth and twenty-first, Roosevelt and Churchill had much in common. Sons of the elite, students of history, politicians of the first rank, they savored power. In their own time both men were underestimated, dismissed as arrogant, and faced skeptics and haters in their own nations-yet both magnificently rose to the central challenges of the twentieth century. Theirs was a kind of love story, with an emotional Churchill courting an elusive Roosevelt. The British prime minister, who rallied his nation in its darkest hour, standing alone against Adolf Hitler, was always somewhat insecure about his place in FDR's affections-which was the way Roosevelt wanted it. A man of secrets, FDR liked to keep people off balance, including his wife, Eleanor, his White House aides-and Winston Churchill.

    Confronting tyranny and terror, Roosevelt and Churchill built a victorious alliance amid cataclysmic events and occasionally conflicting interests. Franklin and Winston is also the story of their marriages and their families, two clans caught up in the most sweeping global conflict in history.

    Meacham's new sources-including unpublished letters of FDR' s great secret love, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, the papers of Pamela Churchill Harriman, and interviews with the few surviving people who were in FDR and Churchill's joint company-shed fresh light on the characters of both men as he engagingly chronicles the hours in which they decided the course of the struggle.

    Hitler brought them together; later in the war, they drifted apart, but even in the autumn of their alliance, the pull of affection was always there. Charting the personal drama behind the discussions of strategy and statecraft, Meacham has written the definitive account of the most remarkable friendship of the modern age.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 7, 2003
    ISBN9780736699563
    Unavailable
    Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship
    Author

    Jon Meacham

    JON MEACHAM received the Pulitzer Prize for his 2008 biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion. He is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George H.W. Bush, American Gospel, and Franklin and Winston. Meacham, who teaches at Vanderbilt University, is a fellow of the Society of American Historians. He lives in Nashville with his wife and children.

    Related to Franklin and Winston

    Related audiobooks

    Political Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Truman Visits Chartwell

      May 3, 2021

      Truman Visits Chartwell
      9 min read

    • Article

      Divided We Stand

      Dec 4, 2018

      Divided We Stand
      13 min read

    • Article

      From The Editor

      Feb 1, 2019

      Winston Churchill worked with many people in various capacities, from soldiers serving together in the field and cabinet colleagues to those who worked to support his career as a Member of Parliament and professional writer. He also employed a wide v

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Rail-Splitter And The Bulldog

      May 3, 2018

      Lewis Lehrman has produced a wonderfully rendered comparison of two very different statesmen. Indeed, while the author’s recent Churchill, Roosevelt & Company related the statecraft of two closely intertwined war leaders, the juxtaposition of Lincoln

      2 min read

    • Article

      Action This Day

      Feb 12, 2021

      Action This Day
      5 min read

    • Article

      Yalta, 75 Years On

      Feb 5, 2020

      Yalta, 75 Years On
      1 min read

    • Article

      Constant Vigilance

      May 30, 2023

      We have here, despite the title, not a new reference book about Winston Churchill but a collection of essays by nineteen different authors “that sets out to look at Churchill in the round, and not just his wartime leadership”—“to show,” according to

      5 min read

    • Article

      Historical Potpourri

      Nov 1, 2021

      Historical Potpourri
      1 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Jan 10, 2024

      Books
      16 min read

    • Article

      Key Canadian

      May 3, 2021

      Key Canadian
      3 min read

    • Article

      Fight To The Finish

      Aug 2, 2019

      Fight To The Finish
      3 min read

    • Article

      Twin Titans

      May 2, 2019

      He was a man of formidable intelligence who, over the course of his long life, proved himself to be a patriot and an apostle for the civilizing mission of the British Empire. As a young man he made his reputation in the Boer War with a daring episode

      3 min read

    • Article

      From The Editor

      Dec 9, 2019

      Thirty years ago the Berlin Wall “came tumblin’ down.” The largely peaceful end to the Cold War came “quite suddenly and quite unexpectedly,” as Churchill once described the end of the First World War, to the relief of a world that had long lived in

      1 min read

    • Article

      Churchill’s Presidents

      May 3, 2021

      Winston Churchill met more American presidents than most American presidents. The articles in this issue show that, of the fourteen presidents who served from 1897 to 1977, all but three had some form of direct contact with Churchill. At the time of

      1 min read

    • Article

      A Risky Meeting

      Aug 3, 2021

      A Risky Meeting
      4 min read

    • Article

      Foreword

      Feb 12, 2021

      Foreword
      3 min read

    • Article

      It Is Finished

      Nov 5, 2020

      It Is Finished
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Warlords

      Nov 2, 2022

      The Warlords
      11 min read

    • Article

      Franklin D. Roosevelt

      May 3, 2021

      Franklin D. Roosevelt
      6 min read

    • Article

      How To Survive The Blitz

      Mar 29, 2020

      How To Survive The Blitz
      8 min read

    Reviews for Franklin and Winston

    4/5

    164 ratings14 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Excellent read, but it IS history. Meacham alternates short vignettes between Roosevelt and Churchill, highlighting the personal aspects of their interactions, ups and downs. Still, I get the feeling that there is much left out, especially re Eleanor's role.
    • 4/5
      The heads of state during World War II were all out-sized men and definitely aligned on a good/evil axis. Two of the "good guys" were Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our only 4-term president and Winston Churchill the silver-tongued, bombastic Prime Minister of England. The story of the relationship between these two men is fascinating. Churchill primarily plays the role of the suitor as he tries to cajole FDR and the Americans into supplying a desperate England with arms with the entry of the US into the war as his ultimate goal. FDR is flattered, but wary; always considering his other political constituencies. FDR's ability to live a highly compartmentalized life meant that no one rreally completely knew how he thought - ever. Both wer members of teh aristocracy of their respective countries sand also students of history as well as politicians of the first order. And both rose magnificently to the task of saving western civilization during the Second World War.Meacham, who had access to previously unpublished correspondence gives the reader a ringside seat to the great conferences in Casablanca, Tehran and Yalta where not only the way to victory in the war was planned, but also the structure of post-war Europe that existed until the 1980's.This is a great story and Meacham makes it accessible to the modern reader. A terrific story for everyone.
    • 4/5
      I never realized that Churchill did not attend FDR's funeral. That is just a taste of the detail that this book goes into. I was amazed at the detail that was put together to make this book. The author did great work detailing out the relationship as the world around these great men continued to transform them.
    • 5/5
      Meacham is one of my favorite biographers. This book was a treat! As always, reviewing a biography always leaves me wondering if my ratings have to do with the book--how it was written, how readable, etc.,--and how did I "like" the subject(s)?I guess neither Roosevelt nor Churchill remains as firmly on the pedestal that history has placed these two men. But I am glad to be seeing them through more of a clear lens rather than the rose-colored I used prior....
    • 4/5
      It's an interesting read and I did pick up a bit more insight into the relationship FDR and Churchill. 40% of the pages are notes and bibliography. I'm getting used to that from Mr. Meacham. It is interesting to look through them but not tonight. It probably would have been a faster read but I mostly read it on a Kindle compatible tablet at lunch. It was easy to stop and then pick it up.
    • 3/5
      A well put together history of the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt. Churchill was the suitor here for obvious reasons. Britain needed help in the war. Besides the necessity of that assistance it is clear than Churchill regarded Roosevelt as a friend. Roosevelt felt some affection for Churchill though certainly more restrained and aloof. Roosevelt was not above putting politics before friendship with Churchill which is made clear by his dealings with Stalin.

      Worth the read.
    • 4/5
      Listening to the Books-on-Tape production, read masterfully by Grover Gardner, had its good and bad points. On the one hand, Gardner captures the rhythms and cadences of the speeches and conversations of both Churchill and Roosevelt. On the other, listening for long stretches at a time could transport me into the position of being one of those caught at the dinner table during an endless Churchill speech. Nevertheless, this book, although perhaps it could have been made shorter by simply paring down the blow-by-blow descriptions of each drink Churchill and Roosevelt took during their dinners together, was well worth the time. Indeed, part of its charm was in those descriptions, as Meacham wished not to simply talk about the decisions that were made but to describe the very human men whose friendship enabled the United States and Britain to fight, and win, World War II; and indeed shaped the world as we know it today. Thatcher and Reagan, Bush and Blair found their progenitors in Franklin and Winston: not agreeing on every matter but convinced of the necessity of the Anglo-American "special relationship" because of the shared history values and values of the two nations, and linked by a very real bond of personal friendship.In this friendship, Churchill was the wooer and Roosevelt the wooed. Churchill needed Roosevelt, Roosevelt did not need Churchill, but perhaps felt he needed to be needed. Churchill wore his heart on his sleeve; Roosevelt did not give his heart to anyone. The fact that Roosevelt died first allowed Churchill to do what Eleanor Roosevelt did, defining FDR for the ages in his most positive light, rather than FDR defining his own legacy according to the vagaries of FDR's personality.This is not to say that FDR did not have an honest personal connection to Churchill; in the words of the immortal lyric, he was "always true in his fashion." Meacham does not shrink from portraying FDR's faults, as he does not shrink from Churchill's faults. Instead, he portrays the two men as human beings - complex, and yet committed to the right as God gave them to see it. Perhaps with the benefit of time, people such as George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Barack Obama will also receive such honest treatment. The most intriguing parts of the book involve Churchill's desparate courtship of Roosevelt and America's aid and favor in Britain's darkest hour, when he was convinced that nothing but America's intervention could save Great Britain; Roosevelt's delicate dance toward war, when his personal trait of keeping hidden his deepest thoughts and feelings worked to his own and the world's advantage; the beginning of the face-to-face relationship between WSC and FDR on ship in the North Atlantic and in Washington at Christmas 1941; and a dramatic day-by-day account of FDR's last days and the actions of both Eleanor Roosevelt and Churchill following his death. Meacham has assembled his account based on letters, diaries, and recollections of the time, reminding us what a very literate age it was. As a pastor, I note the public faith at the time, very different from seventy years later, and the personal facility of both Churchill and Roosevelt with Scripture and the language of faith.
    • 1/5
      A lot of information was wrong. Roosevelt never liked Churchill, ever. Joseph Kennedy blamed for a rumor that Churchill didn’t like Roosevelt? Is this an attempt to make Churchill a bigger man? or redeem his image? Either way I can almost bet the info here was achieved from Sir Gilbert(Official Biographer) which Sir Gilbert is not allowed to write anything negative about Churchill. What a shame.
    • 4/5
      A very enjoyable book written by a Pulitzer Prize award winner. This explores the relationship – both professional and personal – between the two most important leaders of the twentieth century, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. This is not a full biography of either man, nor is it a history of WWII. While you will get elements of both in this book, the sole focus is their relationship.

      Making heavy use of primary sources, including newly analyzed diaries of Lucy Mercer Rutherford and the papers of Pamela Harriman, Meacham paints a very vivid portrait of the two men and the nature of their relationship. In many ways they were very similar in their upbringing and outlook on the world. Both idolized their flawed and somewhat aloof fathers, both were born into privilege and were later accused of betraying their class, both were strong willed and were excellent communicators, both depended heavily on their spouses (though in different ways), and both viewed the future optimistically. Their relationship was intimate but complex, with each playing a role defined largely based on the goal each was trying to achieve.

      From the start Churchill was the suitor and Roosevelt the courted. While Britain held out against the Nazis alone for nearly an entire year Churchill worked to convince Roosevelt of the need for American help. As the leader of a country not in imminent danger, Roosevelt had to deal with the strongly isolationist sentiment dominant in the U.S. at this time. As Churchill pushed him Roosevelt worked to get England the help it needed without getting too far ahead of public opinion; preparing the country for what he was convinced would be the necessity of American involvement. In both cases incredible political instincts and a talent for persuasiveness moved each towards their goal.

      After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on the U.S., Roosevelt and Churchill formed a relationship that became the most formidable alliance of two leaders in world history. In terms of their political relationship, Roosevelt continued to be the dominant partner. The United States had the men and material to wage the kind of fight that was going to be necessary to defeat the Axis powers. Churchill was still often in the position of having to woo Roosevelt to a course of action he believed most beneficial. While Churchill spent nearly 120 days in North America during the war, Roosevelt never visited England. On the other hand, Churchill was the face of resistance to Naziism, his charisma and courage in the face of overwhelming odds focused attention on the dangers of a world dominated by despotism.

      On a personal level , their relationship had developed into what some have called a “love affair,” with each having a deep affection and admiration for the other. It is this relationship that is the primary theme of this book and what is most riveting about it.

      There is little new information presented, except the details provided Lucy Rutherford’s diaries and Pamela Harriman’s papers. It’s the focus on the relationship itself that is unique here. It is very easy to be cynical nowadays, with public expressions by politicians of friendship dismissed as smoke and mirrors. In this case however those expressions were genuine, and it was the relationship that developed that allowed this alliance to literally save the world from despotism!
    • 4/5
      Listening to the Books-on-Tape production, read masterfully by Grover Gardner, had its good and bad points. On the one hand, Gardner captures the rhythms and cadences of the speeches and conversations of both Churchill and Roosevelt. On the other, listening for long stretches at a time could transport me into the position of being one of those caught at the dinner table during an endless Churchill speech. Nevertheless, this book, although perhaps it could have been made shorter by simply paring down the blow-by-blow descriptions of each drink Churchill and Roosevelt took during their dinners together, was well worth the time. Indeed, part of its charm was in those descriptions, as Meacham wished not to simply talk about the decisions that were made but to describe the very human men whose friendship enabled the United States and Britain to fight, and win, World War II; and indeed shaped the world as we know it today. Thatcher and Reagan, Bush and Blair found their progenitors in Franklin and Winston: not agreeing on every matter but convinced of the necessity of the Anglo-American "special relationship" because of the shared history values and values of the two nations, and linked by a very real bond of personal friendship.In this friendship, Churchill was the wooer and Roosevelt the wooed. Churchill needed Roosevelt, Roosevelt did not need Churchill, but perhaps felt he needed to be needed. Churchill wore his heart on his sleeve; Roosevelt did not give his heart to anyone. The fact that Roosevelt died first allowed Churchill to do what Eleanor Roosevelt did, defining FDR for the ages in his most positive light, rather than FDR defining his own legacy according to the vagaries of FDR's personality.This is not to say that FDR did not have an honest personal connection to Churchill; in the words of the immortal lyric, he was "always true in his fashion." Meacham does not shrink from portraying FDR's faults, as he does not shrink from Churchill's faults. Instead, he portrays the two men as human beings - complex, and yet committed to the right as God gave them to see it. Perhaps with the benefit of time, people such as George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Barack Obama will also receive such honest treatment. The most intriguing parts of the book involve Churchill's desparate courtship of Roosevelt and America's aid and favor in Britain's darkest hour, when he was convinced that nothing but America's intervention could save Great Britain; Roosevelt's delicate dance toward war, when his personal trait of keeping hidden his deepest thoughts and feelings worked to his own and the world's advantage; the beginning of the face-to-face relationship between WSC and FDR on ship in the North Atlantic and in Washington at Christmas 1941; and a dramatic day-by-day account of FDR's last days and the actions of both Eleanor Roosevelt and Churchill following his death. Meacham has assembled his account based on letters, diaries, and recollections of the time, reminding us what a very literate age it was. As a pastor, I note the public faith at the time, very different from seventy years later, and the personal facility of both Churchill and Roosevelt with Scripture and the language of faith.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Surprised at how Churchill was portrayed as being so dependent on Roosevelt and how FDR seemed to capitalize on this dependency. Book was very interesting, readable, and provided behind-the-scenes insights into negotiations between London and Washington. A different perspective on WWII relationships.
    • 5/5
      great reader, very good story, very sympathetic to r & c.
    • 4/5
      A look at the friendship of two of the great leaders of the world during WWII. This book takes a look at how that relationship grew and how it affected the conduct of the war.
    • 4/5
      The book starts with an analogy that all friendships have one person who kisses and the other who presents the cheek to be kissed, and that Roosevelt is the one who always presented his cheek to Churchill. Churchill was the constant friend. Franklin seemed to really like Churchill, but the friendship wasn't as unwavering.The friendship develops along with America's involvement in World War II, so the book is partly a cursory history of the war and partly the two friends' involvement with and support of each other's war efforts.