In March 1944, as World War II raged and America’s next presidential election loomed, Franklin D. Roosevelt was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Driven by a belief that he had a duty to see the war through to the end, Roosevelt concealed his failing health and sought a fourth term - a term that he knew he might not live to complete. With unparalleled insight and deep compassion, Joseph Lelyveld delves into Roosevelt’s thoughts, preoccupations, and motives during his last sixteen months, which saw the highly secretive Manhattan Project, the roar of D-Day, the landmark Yalta Conference and FDR’s hopes for a new world order - all as the war, his presidency, and his life raced in tandem to their climax. His Final Battle delivers an extraordinary portrait of this famously inscrutable man, who was full of contradictions but a consummate leader to the very last. “A careful, somber and sometimes harrowing account of FDR’s last sixteen months. . . . [Lelyveld’s] full and disciplined investigation of an important theme makes a significant contribution to FDR scholarship.” - The Wall Street Journal “A gripping, deeply human account. . . . Moving, elegiac.” - The New York Times Book Review