THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF ROOSEVELT: Brokers of Ideas and Power from FDR to LBJ

This mistitled volume briefly chronicles the integrated political biographies of a dozen or so New Deal figures—LBJ, Tommy "the Cork" Corcoran, Abe Fortas, James Rowe, William O. Douglas, Lee Pressman, Clark Clifford and others—through the years following FDR's death. The book culminates in the late 1960s and endeavors to show these men's impact on national politics well into the civil rights and Vietnam War era. Janeway, director of the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia and author of Republic of Denial , somewhat limits his text by insisting on viewing many events and people through the prism of his parents, journalist Eliot Janeway and novelist Elizabeth Janeway, who played significant but not epicentral roles in this circle. The author also labors to cram the subtle political and policy complexities of no less than five presidencies, plus the vital details of a number of complicated and fascinating lives, into a mere 350 pages. Janeway nevertheless finds space for gossip, such as Douglas and Corcoran falling out during Douglas's messy divorce—a matter of no historical moment. But other diversions are more profound, e.g., Janeway's earnest consideration regarding his father's long denial of his Jewishness. In the end, we have an uneven book, one not concerned with anything that might be remotely described as the fall of the house of Roosevelt, and one that would have needed another 300 pages to have fully accomplished the mission assigned. (Apr.)