Nigel Hamilton. The Mantle of Command

In this engagingly written book, Nigel Hamilton seeks to fundamentally revise our understanding of Franklin D. Roosevelt as commander in chief by examining the military direction of the war in 1941 and 1942 from the perspective of Roosevelt. A second volume will examine the remaining years of the war. To capture FDR’s ascendancy as a forceful military leader, Hamilton mines fourteen episodes ranging chronologically from the meeting of FDR and Winston Churchill at Placentia Bay in August 1941 that produced the Atlantic Charter to Operation Torch, the invasion of northwest Africa, in November 1942. Rather than the familiar casting of Churchill as the principal architect of allied strategy or the story of FDR largely deferring the conduct of the war to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hamilton reveals Roosevelt deftly donning the “mantle of command,” and in the process not only subordinating Churchill to alliance lieutenancy but also mastering his generals, admirals, and the secretaries of war and navy.

Alliance · Charter · Navy · Political science · Spanish Civil War · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies