Roosevelt's Centurions

Listeners will enjoy some aspects of this reading of Persico's top-down history of WWII, which is centered on President Franklin Roosevelt place in the events. Narrator Dan Woren has an excellent voice, professional and engaging. He expresses the sense and the emotion of the text without drawing attention to the reading. But his efforts go badly awry in his voice imitations, accents, and pronunciation of foreign or uncommon words. His FDR often sounds like JFK, and his Hitler is comically bad, as are his British, French, and German accents in general. His Chinese, Japanese, and black American accents verge on caricature. Many distracting changes in vocal sound and quality indicate the sloppy editing of rerecorded sections "dropped in." Woren seems poorly cast and unsupported by adequate direction. W.M. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine