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Book Reviews
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The Thinker: Seeking the Intellectual Influences on Theodore Roosevelt
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| DONALD, AIDA D. Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Basic Books, 2007. xvi + 286 pp. $26.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-4650-0213-7.
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| HAWLEY, JOSHUA DAVID. Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. xviii + 318 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-3001-2010-9.
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Since his death in 1919, biographers of Theodore Roosevelt have sought out the influences on his intellectual and personal development. Since TR wrote more than thirty books on such varied subjects as history and hunting, politics and partridges, the task has not been a simple or straightforward one. Some common elements, though, have emerged. The familiar depiction of Roosevelt as an essentially "western" man began almost immediately after the twenty-sixth president's death with Hermann Hagedorn's 1921 Roosevelt in the Bad Lands.1 Kathleen Dalton has claimed that Roosevelt "de-classed and re-manned himself in the West," while William Henry Harbaugh calls Roosevelt's time in the West "one of the great formative experiences of his life."2 Writers such as David McCullough and Carleton Putnam have emphasized the enormous impact of Roosevelt's father on the young Theodore's ideas about manliness ("You must make your body"), war (Roosevelt Senior paid for a substitute during the Civil War), and noblesse oblige.3 Other biographers have speculated that Roosevelt's mother, a true Georgian southern belle, and her Bulloch kin instilled in the young Roosevelt the fire and passion that the staid and dour Dutch Reformed Roosevelts lacked.4 Still others have pointed to his childhood rural experiences as leading to his lifelong love of nature and eventual conservation efforts.5 And H. W. Brands credits TR's early "foreign ventures" in Europe and the Middle East not only with maturing him but also providing insights that would serve his "career as a statesman."6 |
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Personal tragedy also figured prominently in Roosevelt's formative years. His father died at age forty-seven of a painful bowel tumor while Theodore was a Harvard undergraduate. Roosevelt's mother, Mittie, age fifty, and wife, Alice Lee, only twenty-three, famously died on the same day, Alice dying shortly after giving birth to their daughter. His brother Elliott died at age thirty-four after battling alcoholism and dementia. Suffering the losses of so many beloved family members at relatively young ages may have impressed upon Roosevelt his own mortality. He once said that he would give himself "sixty years"—as it turned out, a quite accurate prediction of his lifespan. Roosevelt also sought solace from his grief in increased activity, reflecting his belief that "black care never sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough."7 Finally, personal tragedy seemed to lead to momentous decisions or transformations. The death of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., diverted TR from his earlier interest in natural science. The deaths of his mother and wife pushed him out of politics and into the Bad Lands for a time, while Elliott's death coincided with TR's growing boredom as U.S. civil service commissioner in Washington. All of these factors combined to create one of the most accomplished and fascinating presidents in American history. Now, two new books on Theodore Roosevelt seek to explain the moral and intellectual development of the twenty-sixth president. |
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