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Kaiser, David. No End Save Victory: How FDR Led the Nation into War. New York: Basic Books, 2014. 408pp. $28
David Kaiser's No End Save Victory stands out as the best of several books published in 2014 that examine FDR's leadership during the interlude between the fall of France and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. In contrast to Lynne Olson's Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight over World War II, Susan Dunn's 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler-the Election amid the Storm, and Nicholas Wapshott's The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II, Kaiser extends his analysis beyond the domestic struggle between Roosevelt and the isolationists. While his analysis includes discussions of congressional politics, neutrality legislation, the America First Committee, and the election of 1940, it encompasses additional dimensions that shaped FDR's foreign and security policy ranging from the role of ULTRA and MAGIC intercepts to naval and military advice regarding capabilities and force development. Kaiser presents a wide-ranging analysis of policy, strategy, capacity, and mobilization during a period when danger loomed...