Harriet Rubin, author of the new book,
The Mona Lisa Stratagem: The Art of Women, Age and Power, named a five best books about powerful women list for
Opinion Journal.
The only story on her list set in America:
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
Blanche Wiesen Cook's twin volumes on Eleanor Roosevelt dilate in tendentious detail on the life of the woman who many said was the first female president -- critics of the first couple called the president Franklin "Eleanor" Roosevelt. But this biography rewards patience. E.R. made the world her court by creating an alliance with an unwilling collaborator, her distracted husband, with whom she communicated by in-box rather than by pillow talk. Eleanor turned herself into the people's president by speaking up for those beleaguered by segregation, anti-Semitism and the Great Depression. She lived Cato's ideal: "The winning cause pleases the gods but the losing cause pleases Cato."
Read about
all five titles on Rubin's list.
--Marshal Zeringue
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