The Wars of the Roosevelts: The Ruthless Rise of America's Greatest Political Family

Frequent biographer Mann (Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand) synthesizes previous histories and uncovers notable primary sources, including much material on former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt's illegitimate half brother, to demonstrate the struggles within the Roosevelt dynasty, based as much on rival personalities as on differing political policies. Mann's critical approach unveils the measures the Roosevelts took to conceal the social transgressions of nonconforming family members. Patriarch and 26th U.S. president Theodore (Republican) pushed his own children toward often unrealistic competitive goals and institutionalized his alcoholic brother Elliott (Eleanor's father), limiting Elliott's contact with his children. Theodore's cousin and 32nd U.S. president Franklin Delano's (Democrat) benign neglect of his progeny left them relatively directionless. As Mann points out, the antagonism was not only between the Republican Oyster Bay and Democratic Hyde Park Roosevelts, emphasized in the 2014 documentary The Roosevelts, but also within each family branch.