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A review by alwright1
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt by Eleanor Roosevelt
4.0
I got into reading about past Presidents around the time of the inauguration and became very curious about Eleanor Roosevelt when reading about her husband. After reading this three-volume autobiography, I am no longer curious, but I have even more admiration.
If you're very curious about her childhood, then by all means read the first volume, but if not, read the wikipedia article for a summary and skip to the good stuff. The second volume covers her years in the White House and contains many observations about the world and the US at the time. She definitely transforms from a woman unsure of herself at the beginning of her family life to an insightful commentator on world events. Roosevelt spends more time in the third volume detailing her own worldview as a member of the UN delegation and Civil Rights committee. The topics on which she spends the most time are colored heavily by the mounting Communist threat at the time she wrote that volume (around 1961), but her convictions that all people deserve basic human rights and that we all have a responsibility to bring about a world in which possession of these rights are the bare minimum to be expected are still as prescient and important today as ever. I enjoyed getting to know Eleanor thoroughly.
If you're very curious about her childhood, then by all means read the first volume, but if not, read the wikipedia article for a summary and skip to the good stuff. The second volume covers her years in the White House and contains many observations about the world and the US at the time. She definitely transforms from a woman unsure of herself at the beginning of her family life to an insightful commentator on world events. Roosevelt spends more time in the third volume detailing her own worldview as a member of the UN delegation and Civil Rights committee. The topics on which she spends the most time are colored heavily by the mounting Communist threat at the time she wrote that volume (around 1961), but her convictions that all people deserve basic human rights and that we all have a responsibility to bring about a world in which possession of these rights are the bare minimum to be expected are still as prescient and important today as ever. I enjoyed getting to know Eleanor thoroughly.