Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

In this magisterial work of history, Jon Meacham describes the complex emotional connection between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the two men who led the free world to victory in World War II. It was a unique friendship, with the president and prime minister spending enormous amounts of time together (about one hundred days during the war). Amid cocktails, cigarettes, and cigars, they met, often secretly, in places as far-flung as Washington, Hyde Park, Casablanca, and Tehran, talking to each other of war, illness, and family. Jon Meacham chronicles the moments they spent deciding the course of World War II--where the Allies would land, who would control the atomic bomb, and what kind of world would emerge from the conflict. "Franklin and Winston is a psychological portrait of their alliance: what they thought of each another and how each tried to manage and influence the other. It is also the story of their marriages and their families, two fascinating clans caught up in the greatest global conflict in history. Drawing on new research--including interviews with the few surviving people who spent time in Roosevelt and Churchill's company--and previously untapped archives, Jon Meacham has written the definitive account of this remarkable and historic friendship.