HISTORY
(Da Capo Press) - ’Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941’ by Stanley Weintraub
By Stanley Weintraub
Da Capo. 216 pp. $24
In this compelling book, historian Stanley Weintraub provides a compact and vivid day-by-day account of the days following the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, with special emphasis on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s decision to seek a declaration of war on the Axis powers.
As it happened, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was on his way to the States at the time, undertaking a perilous voyage to coordinate military strategy with Roosevelt. Weintraub describes the hectic Christmas that followed. Churchill participated in the annual lighting of the national Christmas tree, but he and Roosevelt also undertook the more somber business of devising a playbook to topple the Nazis and win the war. With Churchill at his side, FDR entered negotiations with diplomatic envoys that led to the formation of the “Associated Powers,” a forerunner to the United Nations.
For political junkies, this title is chock-full of amusing observations, such as how much Roosevelt admired his former GOP adversary Wendell Willkie for his bold internationalist stance. Apparently, the president even considered offering Willkie a key appointment to mobilize the war effort. Weintraub’s work is an illuminating and heartwarming celebration of the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
—Alexander Heffner
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