Theodore Rex

Rating:
Summary: Bully!
Review: A thrilling look at the great Bull Moose at the apex of his career. Morris definitely seems to have regained his stride after his disappointing Reagan roman a clef. Among recent presidential biographies I'd rank "Theodore Rex" just behind McCullough's "Truman."

Rating:
Summary: TR Comes Alive
Review: Edmund Morris's "Theodore Rex" is a lively, spectacularly well written biography that is every bit as good as David McCullough's "John Adams" from a year ago. Granted, TR was such a fascinating figure that it would be hard to write an uninteresting account of his life, but through his clever use of anecdotes, Morris paints a lasting picture of the man who was (arguably) the greatest peacetime President in American history.

"Theodore Rex" picks up where Morris's first volume about TR ("The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt) left off, and we join "Teddy" as he is preparing to take the oath of office upon the death of his predecessor, William McKinley. In 555 pages, The book neatly covers the seven and a half years of TR's rule, ending on March 4, 1909, as he watches his reluctant handpicked successor, Willam Howard Taft, take the oath. In between, Morris describes one of America's most dynamic and eventful administrations. Morris aptly describes TR's genius as well as his faults. His triumphs and failures get equal treatment and examination. Thoughout, Morris's prose is lively and highly readable.

Overall, "Theodore Rex" is certain to rank among the best works of history this year and will also take its place as one of the best Presidential biographies ever written.

Rating:
Summary: Theodore's Presidency
Review: Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris from Modern Library is the second in a three volume biography of the 26th President of the United States. The first volume The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1980, setting high expectations for the rest of the series. In my opinion, this book easily meets those expectations. This is a fantastic biography, in which Mr. Morris does an excellent job of bringing Theodore Roosevelt's presidency to life.

This prologue of the book starts with the death of President McKinley on September 14th, 1901, and the epilogue is March 4th, 1909, the day he hands the Presidency over to Taft. In-between is a well researched, richly entertaining discussion of his time in the White House. It covers not only the actions, but the decisions, the political feeling in the country at the time.

Mr. Morris does an outstanding job of providing the entire scope of the events, and presents them in a way that makes the reader feel as if he is observing them at the time they are occurring. The perspective one gets on race issues, labor vs. business, and North vs. South during that period, is excellent. Also well discussed is the near war with Germany, and a understanding of the relationship between the U.S. and Japan that would ultimately result in war when a different Roosevelt was in office nearly 40 years later.

I received this book as a gift, and read it without first reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. From that perspective, I can say that this book does not require the reading of the first volume, but that I expect that doing so would enhance the experience. I certainly intend to go back and read the first book, and look forward to reading the third as well. Theodore Rex easily earns 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: The man in the arena
Review: Morris' second book of the trilogy on Theodore Roosevelt (TR) is a most enjoyable read. This book covers TR's White House years and gives great insight into one of Americas greatest presidents and most influential men of the twentieth century. Morris gives you an in depth but not dry look at what TR accomplished in his two terms. He created the Dept. of Interior and protected more land for posterity than any other president. He created the Food and Drug Administration after reading a book written by Sinclair Lewis about the unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry. He mediated the peace treaty between the Russians and the Japanese after the Russo-Japanese war for which he was the first president to be awarded the Nobel peace prize. He built our Navy from fourth to second place in the world and prepared us for super power status. He was instrumental in our building of the Panama Canal, which made us a two-ocean power. These are just some of the highlights of his busy administration. He wrote over 30 books in his life was fluent in six languages and was an astute politician and statesman. There is much to be learned from reading about this great American, the man who was always in the arena.

As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy, I found this to be a great book on leadership.

Rating:
Summary: The True "Man in the Arena"
Review: Morris' second book of the planned trilogy on Theodore Roosevelt is a enjoyable and packed with details. The book covers Roosevelt's White House years, following his ascension to the presidency after McKinley is killed, and gives wonderful insight into one of America's greatest presidents. Roosevelt essentially began the idea of the strong, involved president (since Lincoln's assassination, nearly all the presidents had been largely figure-heads in nature), and he is probably one of the most influential men of the twentieth century.

Morris provides an in depth look at what Roosevelt accomplished in his two terms. He created the Department of Interior, protecting more land for posterity than any other president before or since. After reading a book written by Sinclair Lewis about the unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry, He created the Food and Drug Administration . He mediated the treaty between the Russians and the Japanese after the Russo-Japanese War and as a result became the first president to be awarded the Nobel peace prize. He built our Navy into a world power, preparing the United States for its entry onto the scene as a super power. He was the force that drove the building of the Panama Canal. Roosevelt may well have been the single greatest president to ever serve in the office. If not, then when they call role for the great ones, there aren't too many names in front of him.

In his lifetime, he also authored over 30 books, was fluent in at least six languages, and was a remarkably astute politician even before his rise to the presidency. Roosevelt also wrote the famous poem (I think it would be considerd a poem) entitled, "The Man in the Arena." In reality, he was the "Man in the Arena."

Rating:
Summary: The Right Book at the Right Time
Review: Edmund Morris' Theodore Rex has been in the works for the past twenty years. The long delay was fortuitous, because its publication in the fall of 2001 serves to remind Americans that our country has been under terrorist attack before, and we survived and excelled.

Theodore Roosevelt came into office in September 1901 after an anarchist assassinated President William McKinley. The atmosphere of fear and alarm that swept the country then bears a sharp resemblance to our national mood since September 11. Fortunately, the events of September 1901 brought into office one of our most intellectually able and energetic chief executives. The next seven and a half years were among the most dynamic in our history.

Theodore Roosevelt was a primal force. Nothing like him has held power in Washington before or since. His energy was boundless, his enthusiasm contagious, his charisma eternal. He seized control of the national agenda and forced the United States into the twentieth century.

After such a stupendous job of chronicling one of the most stupendous Presidents, I wonder how Morris will manage the third volume's inevitable tale of decline. Given his track record, I'm sure it will be well worth the wait. (I just hope it isn't another twenty years!)

Rating:
Summary: Lost in prose
Review: After reading McCullough's TRUMAN and Steven Ambrose EISENHOWER I looked to this book with interest in a facinating president. McCullough and Ambrose books are equal to Theodore Rex in academics but were more readable than Morris is. While it contains great detail about the life and times I did not get to know the man, Roosevelt, like I had Truman and Eisenhower in the other books. The book is more appropriate as an academic history than a readable book that anyone can pick up and read.

Rating:
Summary: All detail -- no history!
Review: This was a scrupulously researched biography: but strangely, I've come away with no very clear sense either of Roosevelt's mentality, the times he lived in, the importance of his legacy, etc. Reading the book was like watching an extraordinarily detailed episode of A&E's "Biography" series: highly cinematic, much given to careful detail of what everyone looked like, but short on historical depth. One might compare it to -- just off the top of my head -- Tim Pat Coogan's biography of Michael Collins, at the end of which you will have a complete grasp not only of Collins the man, both in private and public capacities, but of the world he lived in (you can practically taste the Guinness), how and why he made his decisions, and the long- and short-term impact of these. "TR" doesn't really do any of that. There's simply too much detail -- it's as if Morris didn't want to omit any tidbit he'd come across (we don't need to know about every rabbit TR shot, or that his hat didn't fit at his first inauguration) in his enthusiasm to demonstrate how much research he'd done.

And can I say -- it's horribly written. It gushes. Many of these reviews single out its wonderful prose and vivid portraits. I thought they were awful: almost purely visual, and so overwrought as to be almost embarrassing, as if one were listening to a fawning correspondent breathlessly describe a royal occasion. Here's one of my faves, describing John Hay:

"The severe cut of his Savile Row clothes gave line to his five-foot-two-inch figure, while a slight fulness of silk under the winged collar focused attention on his unforgettable face. In youth, when merely mustached, Hay had looked almost mandarin, with his high cheekbones and Ming-smooth brow. Now the mustache floated over a magnificent whitened Vandyke, while the skin above was slashed with creases, two of the deepest plummeting in a frown so anguished that photographers felt obliged to retouch them."

A mustache floating over a magnificent Vandyke! A Ming-smooth brow! All those moveable features -- he sounds like a grandee Mr. Potato-head. For chrissakes, he was elegant and looked grave -- I'd like to know what he was *like.*

Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading, but¿..
Review: Edmund Morris has done an admirable job in this book of detailing the presidential years of Teddy Roosevelt. Be aware however that there are a number of things that Morris does not handle well. For example, Roosevelt's relationship with his family is seldom mentioned. Basically, the Roosevelt family is pretty well ignored. His eldest daughter, Alice gets some attention but not much. To Morris' credit, Roosevelt's very intense relationship with his family would have been impossible to fully cover in this volume. An entire book could be written just about the father-daughter relationship with Alice, let alone Edith and the rest of his brood. When Edith is covered she comes across as a pretty hard to like snob. Maybe she is left out so as not to muddle the warm feeling the reader will develop for T.R. Still, Morris could have given a little more attention to what T.R.s family was up to and how it might have influenced him. One of the very things that makes David McCullough's biographies so wonderful is his ability to weave his subject's family life into their professional life. Morris has done a good job but he is no David McCullough.

Morris however does an excellent job of including Roosevelt's associates in his narrative. John Hay in particular comes across as someone who is somewhat uncertain of how to take T.R. and is often swept aside by his sometimes rash boss. On the other hand, the reader will easily begin to see that Hay and Roosevelt bonded in such a way as to end in a deeply affectionate relationship. His relationships with the rest of his entourage are well covered also as one gets a pretty full picture of their interaction. Morris has also done an excellent job of presenting Teddy's relationship with several members of Congress, including GOP stalwarts such as Mark Hanna and Joseph Foraker, along with a few Democrats like "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman. Through these relationships one gets a very clear picture of the President as he moves with great political skill, picking a fight here, and spreading manure there to get his way. It becomes very clear very early in this book that Theodore Roosevelt was one of the great politicians of all time.

The Roosevelt foreign policy is a little harder to figure as his decision making process, if indeed there was one, is a little hard to fathom. It is clear of course that he is an imperialist but some of his actions regarding conflicts in Europe defy description. Although he spent a large amount of time in Germany in his youth, Roosevelt come across as very anti-German. In a sad comment on Roosevelt's style of leadership, he seems to have sometimes made judgments based on the advice of his favorite tennis buddies. The French Ambassador being one of his favorite tennis opponents might help to explain the President's attitude toward Germany.

After being elected on his own in 1904, Roosevelt made a leftward shift and began pushing even more progressive reforms. The shift is clear in this book but not much discussed and in fact much more than half of the book is taken by the first term. In dealing with the second term the author seems to dwell on the President's legislative successes and mostly ignores the many things Roosevelt unsuccessfully tried to push through Congress. Unfortunately, the failures may much more clearly illustrate the real Roosevelt than the successes and again an opportunity to more fully understand the subject of the book is lost. Morris does however touch on Roosevelt's growing admiration for William Jennings Bryan, a clear indication of the President's leftward shift.

Morris has put together a book that is sometimes very informative and sometimes a little lacking in depth. It is overall a very good book and is a well-written and easy to read volume. Some of the more personal antidotes dealing with T.R. are excellent and Morris certainly had an interesting subject to work with. Unfortunately, one never gets the feeling of really knowing Roosevelt. There is a lot of fascinating information here but I can't help but feel that something is missing. Still, I highly recommend this book because while it may come up a little short of the mark, it is no doubt the best work on Roosevelt's presidency to date.

Rating:
Summary: Bulldozer of a man
Review: I won't pretend to be as insightful a reviewer as most of the people who have reviewed this book so far, but I did want to share my thoughts on this book. I am just now, at age 28, getting into more "serious" reading, i.e. not ESPN magazine or the daily sports page. I was curious to learn more about TR because I had heard of his great thirst for outdoor adventures and that he was an incredibly brilliant and well rounded leader. I was very impressed by this book and I learned a lot.

The book starts with the news of President McKinley's assassination, and fills in much detail on events about which I basically knew nothing. Some highlights of these events include the negotiation surrounding the building and rights to the Panama Canal, the Brownsville, TX shootings, the general racial tension that was pricked when TR invited Booker T Washington to dinner at the White House, the peace treaty between Japan and Russia that TR played a large part in, the building up of our naval fleet, and the creation of national parks.

I also learned a great deal about the main characters in TR's life at that time, namely his Cabinet members and his wife and children. Morris also threads together numerous hunting stories and snippets of Roosevelt's love for adventure that truly made me laugh. I was amazed at his intuition as a politician and his knack for getting his way in most circumstances through sheer force of will.

Theodore Rex was a great read and I would recommend it to anyone who is curious in learning more about that time in our country's history, or if you are like me and want to find out more about a brilliant mind who also happened to love the outdoors.