There is no argument that once 1940 came and Hitler proceeded to sweep through Western Europe, F.D.R. showed a steely determination to defeat the Axis forces and defend democracy. What William I. Hitchcock accomplishes in this splendid and nuanced history is to show how much Roosevelt did in his first seven years in office to avoid getting entangled in foreign matters, given both his focus on pulling America out of the Great Depression and the country’s isolationist mood. “I have seen war,” he said in 1936. “I hate war.” Why and how F.D.R. changed his mind even before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in late 1941 are the questions Hitchcock addresses, and he accomplishes the task brilliantly.
This book’s clever title (the author worked for nearly a decade as the Rome bureau chief of The New York Times) gives the reader a hint of what lies ahead: a witty, slightly irreverent, and always illuminating look at Italy as seen through the eyes of a Jewish boy from Queens, New York, who ended up living in this Catholic country for decades and marrying an Italian. The Vatican figures large in this memoir, as do Venice, Giorgio Armani, and the improbable popularity of The Lord of the Rings among the country’s hard right. In the end, years after applying, Jason Horowitz becomes an Italian citizen, leaving the reader almost as giddy as the author is. The Italian Jobis a delight.