Any biographer of a great leader must address this question: What happened before the greatness that helped the leader become worthy of so much marble? In his new book, Becoming F.D.R.: The Personal Crisis That Made a President, Jonathan Darman argues persuasively that there would not be the Franklin Delano Roosevelt we revere today if, in 1921, 12 years before he became president, he had not been stricken with polio, a disease without a cure that, if it did not kill, could easily break a man’s spirit. How Roosevelt, his wife, and his aides did not allow that to happen is Darman’s riveting tale, filled with the drama, detail, and insight that is the hallmark of a first-rate historian.
JIM KELLY: My guess is that when you started working on Becoming F.D.R., you did not think that polio would re-emerge this summer as a singular threat, with one unvaccinated man in New York State already paralyzed, the virus found in New York City wastewater, and London offering booster shots to any child under 10. For most folks, polio is a distant and nearly extinct disease, but when Roosevelt at age 39 contracted infantile paralysis in 1921 it easily could have been a death sentence. How much did you have to immerse yourself in learning about the disease?
