A gripping account of the 1940 election--a turning point in American history--based on meticulous new research into FDR’s decision to seek a third term

On August 31, 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had no idea that he would run for a third term. Working in the Oval Office that day, he contemplated his presidential library and retirement. Before dawn the next day, everything changed. German tanks had crossed the Polish border; Britain and France had declared war. FDR found himself at a place where no other president had been, wanting to help the democracies of Europe to survive without drawing his country into an unwanted war.

In Roosevelt's Second Act, historian and former White House staffer Richard Moe provides a gripping account of a turning point in American history: FDR’s decision to seek a third term. Often overlooked between the passage of the New Deal and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, FDR’s decision to run again was far from inevitable. For months Roosevelt refused to say whether he would run again or not, but after the Republicans surprisingly nominated Wendell Willkie in July 1940, FDR was convinced that no other Democrat could win and mobilize the nation against Hitler. With Hitler on the verge of conquering Europe, Roosevelt made the fateful decision to campaign for a third term.

Moe offers a brilliant depiction of the duality that was FDR: the bold, perceptive, prescient and moral statesman who set lofty and principled goals, and the sometimes cautious, ambitious, arrogant and manipulative politician in pursuit of them. Fast-paced, insightful and written with an inside understanding of the presidency, this book will forever change our understanding of FDR.