Books: But Is It History?

THE AGE OF ROOSEVELT, I—THE CRISIS OF THE OLD ORDER, 1919-1933 (557 pp.)—Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.—Houghton Mifflin ($6).

In 1919 a handsome young New York aristocrat with a politically useful name spotlighted the man he wanted to see as the next President of the U.S. Said Franklin Delano Roosevelt of Herbert Hoover: "He is certainly a wonder and I wish we could make him President . . . There could not be a better one." By 1932, no two men lived in colder enmity. In F.D.R.'s view. Hoover had become a dragon who was devouring the...