"Masterful." -The Guardian"Propulsive." -The Wall Street Journal"Leebaert has done the near impossible-crafted a fresh and challenging portrait of the man and his inner circle."- Richard Norton Smith, author of An Uncommon Man, former director of the Hoover, Eisenhower, Reagan, and Ford presidential libraries."A fascinating and absorbing analysis of FDR's brilliantly chosen team of four courageous and creative men and women."-Susan Dunn, author of 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler-the Election Amid the Storm, Massachusetts Professor of Humanities, Williams College.Drawing on new materials, Unlikely Heroes constructs an entirely fresh understanding of FDR and his presidency by spotlighting the powerful, equally wounded figures whom he raised up to confront the Depression, then to beat the Axis.Only four people served at the top echelon of President Franklin Roosevelt's Administration from the frightening early months of spring 1933 until he died in April 1945, on the cusp of wartime victory. These lieutenants composed the tough, constrictive, long-term core of government. They built the great institutions being raised against the Depression, implemented the New Deal, and they were pivotal to winning World War II.Yet, in their different ways, each was as wounded as the polio-stricken titan. Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, and Henry Wallace were also strange outsiders. Up to 1933, none would ever have been considered for high office. Still, each became a world figure, and it would have been exceedingly difficult for Roosevelt to transform the nation without them. By examining the lives of these four, a very different picture emerges of how Americans saved their democracy and rescued civilization overseas. Many of the dangers that they all overcame are troublingly like those America faces today.

INTRODUCTIONPART I: SUFFERING1. STEPPING FORWARD (Inauguration as Governor, January 1, 1929, to the October Crash)2. ECONOMIC PLAGUE (October 1929 to Campaign Summer, 1932)3. SURGE TO POWER (November Elections 1932 to Roosevelt's Inauguration, March 1933)4. ACTION NOW (The Hundred Days, March-June 1933)5. NEW FRONTIERS (Summer 1933 to the Midterm Elections, November 1934)6. GETTING THE HABIT (Midterm Elections 1934 to Summer 1936s Party Conventions)PART II: ENDURANCE7. CREST OF THE WAVE (FDR's 1936 Campaign to Christmas 1937)8. FACING THE WORLD (A Super Island-State in the Mid-1930s)9. FAITH AND MAINTENANCE (January to Summer 1938)10. TURNING POINTS (Reforms of Summer '38 to a New Congress, January 1939)11. SPARK TO FLAME ("Munich" in Autumn 1938, to War in Europe, September 1939)12. LINE OF FIRE (War in September 1939 to attack in Western Europe, May 1940)PART III: HOPE13. DEVOTEES OF FORCE (Blitzkrieg of May 1940 to FDR's Inauguration, January 1941)14. ELEVENTH HOUR (Inauguration 1941 to Pearl Harbor, December 7)15. NEW EXTREMES (Attack at Pearl Harbor to November 1942's Midterm Elections)16. WASHINGTON WARS (Operation Torch, November 1942, to the Coal Strikes, November 1943)17. HARD POUNDING (Stalin in Tehran, November 1943, to D-Day, June 1944)18. LONG SHADOWS (Operation Overlord, Summer 1944, to FDR's Death, April 1945)EPILOGUE