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Theodore Rex (Theodore Roosevelt Series Book 2) Kindle Edition
WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY • “[Theodore Rex] is one of the great histories of the American presidency, worthy of being on a shelf alongside Henry Adams’s volumes on Jefferson and Madison.”—Times Literary Supplement
Theodore Rex is the story—never fully told before—of Theodore Roosevelt’s two world-changing terms as President of the United States. A hundred years before the catastrophe of September 11, 2001, “TR” succeeded to power in the aftermath of an act of terrorism. Youngest of all our chief executives, he rallied a stricken nation with his superhuman energy, charm, and political skills. He proceeded to combat the problems of race and labor relations and trust control while making the Panama Canal possible and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But his most historic achievement remains his creation of a national conservation policy, and his monument millions of acres of protected parks and forest.
Theodore Rex ends with TR leaving office, still only fifty years old, his future reputation secure as one of our greatest presidents.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House
- Publication dateNovember 24, 2010
- File size8354 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Morris combines a fine command of the era's big issues with an appreciation for the daily minutiae involved in governing a nation. Less controversially inventive, but no less readable, than the Ronald Reagan biography Dutch, Theodore Rex gives readers new reason both to admire and fault an American phenomenon. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Magnificent . . . a sweeping narrative of the outward man and a shrewd examination of his character. . . . It is one of those rare works that is both definitive for the period it covers and fascinating to read for sheer entertainment. There should be a queue awaiting the next volume.”
-W. A. Swanberg, The New York Times Book Review
“Theodore Roosevelt, in this meticulously researched and beautifully written biography, has a claim on being the most interesting man ever to be President of this country.”
-Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Spectacles glittering, teeth and temper flashing, high-pitched voice rasping and crackling, Roosevelt surges out of these pages with the force of a physical presence.”
-The Atlantic Monthly
“Morris’s book is beautifully written as well as thoroughly scholarly-clearly a masterpiece of American biography. . . . Hundreds of thousands will soon be reading this book . . . and will look forward, as I do, to Morris’s second volume.”
-Kenneth S. Davis, Worcester Sunday Telegram
From the Inside Flap
A detailed prologue describes TR s assumption of power and journey to Washington, with the assassinated President McKinley riding behind him like a ghost of the nineteenth century. (Trains rumble throughout this irresistibly moving narrative, as TR crosses and recrosses the nation.) Traveling south through a succession of haunting landscapes, TR encounters harbingers of all the major issues of the new century-Imperialism, Industrialism, Conservation, Immigration, Labor, Race-plus the overall challenge that intimidated McKinley: how to harness America s new power as the world s richest nation.
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The First Administration: 1901-1904
The epigraphs at the head of every chapter are by "Mr. Dooley," Theodore Roosevelt's favorite social commentator.
The Shadow of the Crown
I see that Tiddy, Prisidint Tiddy-here's his health-is th' youngest prisidint we've iver had, an' some iv th' pa-apers ar-re wondherin' whether he's old enough f'r th' raysponsibilities iv' th' office.
On the morning after McKinley's interment, Friday, 20 September 1901, a stocky figure in a frock coat sprang up the front steps of the White House. A policeman, recognizing the new President of the United States, jerked to attention, but Roosevelt, trailed by Commander Cowles, was already on his way into the vestibule. Nodding at a pair of attaches, he hurried into the elevator and rose to the second floor. His rapid footsteps sought out the executive office over the East Room. Within seconds of arrival he was leaning back in McKinley's chair, dictating letters to William Loeb. He looked as if he had sat there for years. It was, a veteran observer marveled, "quite the strangest introduction of a Chief Magistrate . . . in our national history."
As the President worked, squads of cleaners, painters, and varnishers hastened to refurbish the private apartments down the hall. He sent word that he and Mrs. Roosevelt would occupy the sunny riverview suite on the south corner. Not for them the northern exposure favored by their predecessors, with its cold white light and panorama of countless chimney pots.
A pall of death and invalidism hung over the fusty building. Roosevelt decided to remain at his brother-in-law's house until after the weekend. It was as if he wanted the White House to ventilate itself of the sad fragrance of the nineteenth century. Edith and the children would breeze in soon enough, bringing what he called "the Oyster Bay atmosphere."
At eleven o'clock he held his first Cabinet meeting. There was a moment of strangeness when he took his place at the head of McKinley's table. Ghostly responsibility sat on his shoulders. "A very heavy weight," James Wilson mused, "for anyone so young as he is."
But the President was not looking for sympathy. "I need your advice and counsel," he said. He also needed their resignations, but for legal reasons only. Every man must accept reappointment. "I cannot accept a declination."
This assertion of authority went unchallenged. Relaxing, Roosevelt asked for briefings on every department of the Administration. His officers complied in order of seniority. He interrupted them often with questions, and they were astonished by the rapidity with which he embraced and sorted information. His curiosity and apparent lack of guile charmed them.
The President's hunger for intelligence did not diminish as the day wore on. He demanded naval-construction statistics and tariff-reciprocity guidelines and a timetable for the independence of Cuba, and got two visiting Senators to tell him more than they wanted to about the inner workings of Congress. In the late afternoon, he summoned the heads of Washington's three press agencies.
"This being my first day in the White House as President of the United States," Roosevelt said ingratiatingly, "I desired to have a little talk with you gentlemen who are responsible for the collection and dissemination of the news."
A certain code of "relations," he went on, should be established immediately. He glanced at the Associated Press and Sun service representatives. "Mr. Boynton and Mr. Barry, whom I have known for many years and who have always possessed my confidence, shall continue to have it." They must understand that this privilege depended on their "discretion as to publication." Unfortunately, he could not promise equal access to Mr. Keen of the United Press, "whom I have just met for the first time."
Boynton and Barry jumped to their colleague's defense. Roosevelt was persuaded to trust him, but warned again that he would bar any White House correspondent who betrayed him or misquoted him. In serious cases, he might even bar an entire newspaper. Barry said that was surely going too far. Roosevelt's only reply was a mysterious smile. "All right, gentlemen, now we understand each other."
Much later that evening, after a small dinner with friends in the Cowles house on N Street, the President allowed himself a moment or two of querulousness. "My great difficulty, my serious problem, will meet me when I leave the White House. Supposing I have a second term . . ."
Commander Cowles, replete with roast beef, sank deep into leather cushions and folded his hands over his paunch. He paid no attention to the cataract of talk pouring from the walnut chair opposite. For years he had benignly suffered his brother-in-law's fireside oratory; he was as deaf to Rooseveltian self-praise as he was to these occasional moments of self-doubt. How like Theodore to worry about moving out of the White House before moving in! The Commander's eyes drooped. His breathing grew rhythmic; he began to snore.
"I shall be young, in my early fifties," Roosevelt was saying. "On the shelf! Retired! Out of it!"
Two other guests, William Allen White and Nicholas Murray Butler, listened sympathetically. Prodigies themselves-White, at thirty-three, had a national reputation for political journalism, and Butler, at thirty-nine, was about to become president of Columbia University-they were both aware that they had reached the top of their fields, and could stay there for another forty years. Roosevelt was sure of only three and a half. Of course, the power given him dwarfed theirs, and he might win an extension of it in 1904. But that would make its final loss only harder to bear.
So Butler and White allowed the President to continue lamenting his imminent retirement. They interrupted only when he grew maudlin-"I don't want to be the old cannon loose on the deck in the storm!"
Undisturbed by the clamor of younger voices, Commander Cowles slept on.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Product details
- ASIN : B004DEPH0M
- Publisher : Random House; Revised ed. edition (November 24, 2010)
- Publication date : November 24, 2010
- Language : English
- File size : 8354 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 786 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #92,867 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Edmund Morris is one of America's best political biographers and journalists. He is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. He lives in New York and Washington, DC.
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The first section of the book, detailed the first three and a half years of Roosevelt's presidency and is the strong section of the book. Morris not only relates Roosevelt's innate political skill in dealing with older and more conservative members of the GOP in Congress he had to interact with, but also his belief that as President he needed to do things none of his predecessors had done including cultivating a relationship with the press on an unprecedented scale. Morris' goes into great detail about both domestic and foreign topics that Roosevelt dealt with, in particular battling trusts and Panama. Throughout this period, Roosevelt also outmaneuvered any possible rival for the Republican nomination in 1904 then got elected in dominating fashion.
After the election of 1904, the book's second section begins and there seems to be a shift that becomes noticeable as one reads. While the first section of the book is full of action, the second is sedate by comparison. As Morris explains in the book, because of the way Congress met basically all of 1905 was void of the anything meaningful happening on the domestic front while Roosevelt was active in foreign affairs. But even though this in mind, the fact that not until late 1907 or early 1908 does there seem to be as much activity as what happens in the first section. A important reason is that Morris' touches upon Roosevelt most enduring legacy, his conservationism in establish national parks and monuments for future generations.
By the end of the book, Morris has imparted that the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt has transformative not only for the office but Constitutionally as well to the consternation of long-time legislators who believed Congress should have more power than the President. However Morris never outright states this, instead he gives all the evidence of this throughout the book giving the reader a clear picture of this transformative period in American history. If you are interested in Theodore Roosevelt, early Twentieth Century politics, or American history in general I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
Of course, and it's been done as long as histories have been written. These histories-as-art work better when the historian doesn't get carried away with his or her artistic expression, and that is what ended up bothering me, slightly but naggingly, with this otherwise excellent, very readable follow-up to "The Rise Of Theodore Roosevelt."
The problem begins right away, when we get a detached opening section detailing the arduous journey Vice President Roosevelt takes after the assassination of President William McKinley. Edmund Morris can write, alright, and he doesn't mind showing off, as he spends 40 pages describing every bit of visual detail and some extrapolated thought balloons from Roosevelt and those around him in those confused early hours leading to his inauguration.
Morris did something very much like this in "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt," where he started things with a flash-forward to a reception at the White House. That was a brilliant table-setter. The opening here, far longer and fuller of itself, is more of a snooze-inducer.
Morris can write and he does have a great story to tell, which he does with greater economy after the rough start. His impressive wit and command of the times shine through, as when he notes Roosevelt's early identification with conservatives, "wealthy Republicans who belonged to the Union League Club, read the North American Review, and were coldly polite to butlers."
One of the aspects of Roosevelt's presidency that makes him so fascinating is how that cozy view would be challenged in his time in office, starting with his inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner and then escalating as he hacked away at the trusts that threatened to coil America into plutocratic peonage.
He was the "big stick" president, and Morris shines especially when detailing how Roosevelt applied means fair and foul in gaining for his country a "pathway between the seas" that would launch American hegemony over the hemisphere. Yet Roosevelt could be quite circumspect about his use of power. "We are too big a people to be careless in what we say," he observes as the Germans threaten Venezuela.
Morris has fun with the 1904 election, a blowout for Roosevelt in which he was opposed by a sleepy appeals-court judge Morris describes as "gray enough to defeat the new science of autochrome photography". At times, he OD's on snark with Maureen Dowd-type gusto, giving short shrift to the people around Roosevelt as a means of demonstrating Roosevelt's greatness. He works his thesaurus overtime to get in as many digs on William Howard Taft's fatness as possible; even the poor man's telegrams are described as "Brobdingnagian."
The book took a while to read, but was worth it. If it's not as good as Morris's first book, it's better than most histories I've come across, written in an intelligent, coherent style that at time, yes, approaches high art.
Roosevelt would have approved: "When the history of this period is written down, I believe my administration will be known as an administration of ideals."
Top reviews from other countries
Theodore Roosevelt was a politican of firm views. A supporter of the market system, who nevertheless saw its flaws and inequities, he worked to reform a system which seemed stacked in the favour of cartels and monopolies. A Republican who was not afraid to challenge his own party on a variety of issues - although this ultimately caused problems and storred up resentments for the future - and was willing to use his undoubted popularity to appeal to the wider electorate in order to bring about change. A conservationist and a global statesman whose actions and measures preserved millions of acres of wilderness, but who was also one of the driving forces behind that great monument to industrial progress, the Panama Canal.
Overall, an excellent book examining the extraordinary presidency of a remarkable man.